Little Girl
by GalaxyNurd04
Summary: Set eight years after the end of the anime, Lucy and Natsu are leading a wonderful life together. They are raising two children in the Fairy Tail guild, and their marriage is strong. But when tragedy strikes the Dragneel family, the Fairy Tail guild must remain level-headed as they find the hope they will need to face the hard times ahead. (Unfinished so far)
1. Chapter 1

"Stella!" Natsu laughed, "Don't jump on your sister!"

In response, the stubborn blonde child glared up at her father. "Why not?" She demanded.

"She doesn't like it, sweetheart. You don't want to hurt her, do you?"

Stella huffed and, quite stubbornly, climbed off the back of her sister, who was crying out.

"I swear, her temper just gets more and more unpredictable." Natsu started, turning his head to look at his wife, "I guess she gets it from me, huh?"

Lucy smiled, knowing he was right. "It makes me wonder, where did Nashi's personality come from?"

As if to prove Lucy's point, Nashi, free of her sister's attacks, came running to her mother. She buried herself in Lucy's arms, sniffling. "Momma! Stella ~hic~ she jumped on me!" The distressed 8-year-old cried. Of Natsu and Lucy's children, Nashi was the crybaby, and Stella was more of a tough girl.

Lucy sighed "I know, baby. But she's still learning that she can't do stuff like that. Try to be patient with her, okay? I'm sure she didn't mean to hurt you. Right, Stella?" She tacked on, glancing at her 5-year-old, who had her arms crossed defiantly.

Nashi took a second to compose herself, wiping the tears from her eyes and sniffing, before she nodded and marched back to her sister. "You can't jump on me, you hear?" Her sister's response was an apologetic hum. Nashi hugged her sister, letting her know she was forgiven.

"You'd think it would be the older one attacking the younger one..." Natsu trailed off, lost in thought. Lucy loved seeing him like that. In the past nine years, he had really mellowed out. He was so vastly different from the man she had met all that time ago...

* * *

 **Nine years ago, a pink-haired boy and a cat "saved" a blonde girl from the clutches of a forbidden spell, wielded by a "Salamander" who was putting on a street show. They are now sitting in a cafe together, eating...**

 _"So, my name's Lucy! Nice to meet you!" Lucy introduced herself to the rather unusual pair sitting across from her. She expected them to respond, but they did no such thing. They were too busy stuffing their faces with food. Uneasily, she tried again. "Uhh... Natsu and Happy, was it?"_

 _This time, there was a response from the pink-haired boy- Natsu. "Mmm-Hmm." Stuffing his mouth with more food, he said, "You're really nice."_

 _Lucy sat and wondered what he meant by that before understanding struck-_ He must be talking about me buying him food... _she thought to herself._

 _"Thanks...you guys can slow down, we're not in a hurry. And the food's kinda flying everywhere." She said, somewhat nervously. When she offered to take them to lunch, she hadn't been anticipating this; they were cramming their food into their mouths, barely pausing for breath or conversation. Then she remembered the events of earlier, in which she was under a charm spell. She decided that she should explain what that was to these two while they were eating. This launched into a full description of magic and guilds and whatnot. She had a sinking suspicion that they were only half listening, but she didn't mind. What broke her out of her train of thought was the blue cat, finally taking a break from the food._

 _"You talk a lot." He remarked._

He's right. I have been talking a lot about myself... I hope it wasn't rude. Maybe I should ask about them? _she thought. "You guys came here looking for someone, didn't you?" She asked. Natsu has also stopped eating at this point, and she decided that her lecture's ending was well timed._

 _It was Happy that answered her question. "We were looking for Igneel!"_

 _"We heard a rumor that a salamander was going to be in town, so we came looking for him. Turns out it was someone else." Natsu elaborated._

 _"Yeah!" Happy turned to his friend. "That guy didn't look like a Salamander at all!"_

 _"No kidding! I bet that guy can't even breathe fire like a real dragon!" Natsu huffed._

 _At this point, Lucy was completely lost. "I don't understand..." She started, voicing her confusion. "Your friend looks like a dragon?"_

 _Natsu turned to her. "No, you got it all wrong. He doesn't_ look _like a dragon, he_ is _one."_

 _It took a second for the news to settle itself into her brain, and when it did, she was even more confused than she was before. "Why would a dragon show up in the middle of town?!" She said, a little too loudly._

 _Natsu and Happy opened their mouths to argue their point, but no words made it past their lips._ She's right. _They realized at the same time._

 _Lucy's chuckles had barely reached their ears when she started to excuse herself, putting money on the table to pay for the meal._ I think I'll take a walk. Maybe it'll clear my head a bit. _Lucy decided._

 _"Enjoy the rest of your lunch, and maybe I'll see you around!" She happily chirped, heading for the door. The waitress closest to the exit thanked Lucy for stopping by, and then looked behind her in horror. Turning to see what the commotion was, Lucy spotted the pink-haired boy and his cat kneeling on the floor._

 _"Thank you for the food!" They chorused._

 _"U-Uh, yeah.. sure," She said. "Will you get off the floor please... you're embarrassing me!"_

 _She stayed to watch them climb back into the booth and begin stuffing their faces again. Smiling, she murmured, "What an odd pair. I hope I see them around."_

 _As she walked out the door, she knew she meant it._

* * *

 **Present day**

"Lucy?" Natsu asked, tearing Lucy from her thoughts.

"Hmm?" Lucy responded, turning her head to face her husband, who looked concerned.

"You okay, Luce? You were really zoned out for a while there."

Lucy smiled. "Yeah, I was just remembering the first time we met, nine years ago. We ate lunch together. Do you remember?" She asked him.

He smirked, obviously knowing exactly what she was talking about. "Yeah, I remember. You bought me a whole bunch of food..."

"Is that all you remember about it?!" She yelled, annoyed that she remembered the exchange perfectly, while he seemed to only recall the meal. "I guess that makes sense though. All you did was eat."

Natsu's smirk turned into a full-on smile, further proving to Lucy that his memory only reached back that far because of the meal that was provided. "Anyway," he sighed "are we going to head to the guild now? It's about time, I think."

"Yeah..." Lucy reluctantly agreed. Today was the day that Natsu would be taking Nashi out on her first guild mission. Lucy had been uneasy about the idea since it was proposed, and the thought still hadn't grown on her. "Please make sure she isn't hurt, you know how she is," Lucy said, referencing the events of that morning.

"Yeah, I know. But she'll be fine. I won't let her get hurt." Natsu said.

Lucy nodded. She trusted Natsu, and it was only a short mission around Magnolia. _She'll be fine._ Lucy felt her resolve harden. "Alright then, let's go." She called the kids over, and as a family, they began walking to the Fairy Tail guild hall.

* * *

 **Somewhere, off in the distance...**

An unsettling air gathered in the run-down restaurant as soon as the two men walked in. They quickly chose a table, ignoring the Please Wait To Be Seated sign nestled in the corner. A waitress almost confronted them, but one glance at their demeanor shook any thoughts of speaking to them from her mind.

"When will we leave?" Asked the first man. He had a dark cloak wrapped around his broad shoulders, and his straight blond hair was styled in a bowl cut. He also had piercing teal eyes, which somehow only made him look more menacing than he already was. But despite the unwelcoming aura that wrapped itself around him, he was quite beautiful, for a man.

"Soon enough." The second man replied. He also had a cloak around his shoulders. However, unlike his companion, there was nothing pretty about this man. He had forest green hair that fell in several different lengths, the longest one reaching his shoulder. He had dark pools of brown above a deeply scarred nose, and an equally scarred mouth. There seemed to be waves of authority rippling off of him, which only added to the uninviting look about him.

"We have to leave soon, though, right? I mean, we can't just-"

"Yes, I know!" Shouted the second man. "We'll leave when the time is right. But we need to eat. Or did you forget?" He scowled.

"N-no, sir." Said the blond. He picked up the menu in front of him, unable to focus on choosing a dish.

"Oi!" Yelled the scarred man. "Can we get some service, here?!"

The waitresses took a second to process what he meant. _Is he asking for food?_ They all thought. His second yell brought them all to their senses, and they started looking very busy polishing a countertop of setting table ware. One waitress was not as lucky as her friends. The man's gaze zeroed in on her, just standing, frantically searching for something to do. Once she realized that it was futile, she gathered up her courage, as well as two menus, and walked to the table.

"What can I get started for you two?" She gulped.

* * *

A/N: Hi there! Thank you for reading this! It's my first fanfic ever, so I hope you liked it! There will be more chapters, for sure, and I'll try to update frequently. Please leave a review for me! And please don't go too easy on me. Meaning: LEAVE CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM! Be nice about it, but I can't get better if you all don't tell me what I'm doing wrong!

Anyway, stay tuned for the next chapter, where you'll get to meet the rest of the guild and see how they're doing. :) That's all for now, Goodbye!

-K

 **ALSO! Please note that in the flashback, I pulled most of the dialogue from the actual episode of the anime! I didn't make that dialogue up, it does not belong to me! I repeat, THE DIALOGUE IN THE FLASHBACK WAS FROM THE ANIME, NOT MY IMAGINATION!**


	2. Chapter 2

"Hello, guys!" Mira called out from behind the Fairy Tail bar. Natsu and Lucy said hello, and tried to get Nashi and Stella to say something as well, but there was no such luck. The girls were busy looking for their friends.

Mira smiled knowingly; her son had done the same thing when he was small. After he turned ten, however, he decided that it was too childish for him.

The girls spotted their friends and ran off to greet them, but Natsu and Lucy went up to the bar to talk to Mira.

"What's that smile for, Mira?" Lucy asked.

"Oh, just... thinking about Ryu. He used to do the same thing you girls do; look around and run off without saying anything. He's so grown-up now!" She said.

"Aye." Natsu agreed. "Yesterday, I almost mistook him for Laxus!"

Mira sighed. "Yes, he definitely takes after his father. I wish there was some of me in there too, but I guess that's too much to ask for."

It was true. Mira's son, Ryu, had grown to look more and more like his father, Laxus, as the years went by. Everyone assured Mira that he had her eyes, but she knew better. Even his personality came from his father.

"How old is he now?" Lucy asked, then looked around. "And I don't see him anywhere. What's he up to now?"

Mira's face brightened. "He's eleven next month. And currently, he's out of town with Laxus. They're doing a father/son training camp... or something like that. They'll be back the day after tomorrow." You could practically see the glowing pride that radiated from Mira. She loved her son, and it was clear to see why. Not only could the boy use his father's lightning magic, but he was starting to learn Mira's takeover magic as well, and he was excelling in that. All before he was even a teenager. "Anyway," Mira said, "I have to take these drinks over to The Group. Why don't we head over there now?" She asked.

"The Group" was what all the parents in Fairy tail had been dubbed. They usually all sat in the lounge-like part of the guild hall, the parents seated and the children on the floor, playing. Stella and Nashi had already made their way over to the flock of children and were playing some sort of Princess game with Yuki. Yuki was Erza's youngest child. She had her father's electric blue hair and half of his marking under her eye. Her twin brother, older than her by a few minutes, was named Simon. He had Erza's red hair, and the upper half of Jellal's marking. Nobody understood how the twins each got half of their father's unique facial symbol, but everybody loved it, especially Erza. It was adorable!

Among the three girls, there were two boys. One of them was Simon, Erza's oldest child. The other was Storm Fullbuster, who was Juvia and Gray's son. He had a head full of raven-black hair, but he had his mother's eyes to make up for it. Much like Natsu, Juvia had mellowed out in the last few years. She no longer called Gray by any ridiculous nicknames, and she didn't obsess over him to an unhealthy extent either.

Of course, the parents present were not the only parents in Fairy Tail. Bisca and Alzack had their daughter, Asuka, but they were off on a family vacation to celebrate the news of their second child, which they found out about just four weeks ago. And of course, there were the parents-to-be, Gajeel and Levy. They didn't normally show up until around 11 these days, mostly because Levy had been sleeping in lately, and also because Gajeel was just not a morning person.

"Hey guys!" Lucy chirped. She was glad to be surrounded by her friends again. She looked around, happy to see everyone. She smiled when she saw the way Gray was holding Juvia. It still caught her off guard sometimes. Seeing the pure love that radiated off of him made it hard to believe that they were once _not_ together. Luc was also pleased to see Jellal. He normally went off on a mission or stayed home to clean. The days that he stayed in the guild were few and far between, but he was always home from missions before a week passed, so Lucy knew that his children weren't growing up fatherless. _Besides,_ Lucy thought, _it's not like Erza would let him leave for an extended amount of time._

Before long, cries of "Momma! Momma, look!" tore Lucy from her thoughts. Storm was holding up a picture he had drawn, showing it to his mother.

"That's wonderful, baby!" Juvia cooed. Lucy laughed at the habit all the Fairy Tail parents had adopted; it didn't matter to them how old their kids were, they would always be referred to as "baby" by their parents.

Juvia, hearing Lucy's laughter, looked across the small circle of parents to look at . "Good morning, Lucy," Juvia said. At his mother's words, Storm turned around and ran to Lucy.

"Auntie Lucy! Look at my picture!" He said, showing Lucy a picture of what she guessed was supposed to be a bird made of ice... but it also might've been a pond with some fish in it. You can never be too sure with the art of a six-year-old.

"That's really good, Storm!" Lucy said. Then, as politely as one can ask, she added, "What is it?"

Storm didn't even look mildly offended by her question. "It's a big gray wolf fighting a demon made of fire! And over here..." Storm talked for the better part of two minutes about what was in his drawing. Not once did he mention an ice-bird or a pond. "See it, Uncle Natsu?" Storm finished.

"Well, of course I do, buddy. I knew exactly what it was the moment I saw it!" Natsu responded, lifting a hand to ruffle the little boy's hair. Storm's eyes lit up, and he went back to the drawing table to create another masterpiece.

Erza giggled, saying, "He sure does like you, Natsu. It's so different from Gray at that age. Hard to believe they're related!" Erza's remark had everyone laughing, reflecting on the history of Gray and Natsu, who could never get along.

"Forget 'at that age', Erza!" Juvia said between gasps of laughter. "They were fighting until after they hit their twenties!"

"What'd I miss?" Levy's voice piped up from the entrance of the building.

Lucy scooted over to make room for her friend, patting the empty space next to her on the couch, and then launched into a detailed description of the last few minutes.

Gajeel lowered himself next to Natsu, partly because there was almost no room next to Levy, and partly because he knew he would be engaged in girly talk if he sat next to her.

"Hey, man. What's up?" Natsu asked.

Gajeel sighed. "The cravings have started to hit." He said to the ceiling. Natsu just laughed. He knew exactly what the man meant, having gone through it twice with Lucy. Levy was a little more than three months pregnant now, so it made sense for her to be craving things.

"Natsu waited for Gajeel to elaborate, and he did. "She woke me up at 5:30 this morning and went to the kitchen. I went to check on her, and she said she wanted blueberry pancakes and chocolate milk, _bad._ So I was up before the sun this morning, making breakfast." Gajeel concluded with a sigh.

"At least Levy's cravings are _normal_!" Natsu scoffed. "Lucy always wanted stuff like peanut butter and pickle sandwiches! Do you know how bad that smells? It is _awful_!" Natsu complained.

For a while, the quiet buzzing of conversation filled the guild hall, and then the phone started ringing. Mira answered, talked for a bit, and called out to Natsu.

"Natsu! You have a job to be at, don't you?" She questioned.

"Crap! I forgot!" He called out. Lucy laughed. This was exactly something Natsu would do. "Nashi, can you get your jacket on, sweetheart? We have to go on our mission now."

Nashi's eyes lit up. She'd been waiting for a whole week to go out with her dad, and the day was finally here! She scrambled to buckle her shoes and tug on her sweater, so Natsu came to help her. "So excited you can't even put your shoes on, huh?" He chuckled.

Natsu's carefree attitude did nothing to ease the knot of dread building in Lucy's stomach. "Natsu... why don't you take Gajeel with you?" She suggested.

Gajeel growled. "I was up at the buttcrack of dawn this morning. If you think I'm doing anything other than napping, you've got another thing coming."

Levy looked at her hands in embarrassment. "I'm sorry that I woke you up, I just-"

"Don't worry about it, Shrimp. I understand. I just need a nap." Gajeel cut her off and reached behind Lucy to take Levy's hand. He was out cold within a few seconds.

"Why don't you take me, then?" Lucy offered.

"Lucy..." Natsu started. "You've got to stay here with Stella. Besides, It's an easy quest. We'll be back before you go to sleep Lucy. We'll be fine." He said, then kissed her goodbye. Nashi gave her mom a hug and followed Natsu out the door.

* * *

A/N: Alright! Two down! In the same day! WOO! I think this chapter was longer than the first one, but that was because of the new characters that I had to add in.

Thank you for reading! Hopefully you'll write a review as well!

Stay tuned for chapter three, which will be coming out tomorrow (hopefully!) :) Thank you again for reading! Bye!

-K


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Hi again! If you're reading this, thank you! I've realized that I haven't been putting a disclaimer on any of my other chapters, so I'll add one here. (Sorry 'bout that).

 **Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Fairy Tail**

* * *

 **In a forest near Magnolia...**

"...Levi?" Asked the blond man, wrapping the cloak tighter around his shoulders. "It's getting colder. And we need to eat lunch. Should we eat here? It'll take about another hour to get to Magnolia, and I don't think I can wait that long."

There was no answer from the blond man's companion, so hesitantly, he tried again. "Levi?"

"Yeah." Snapped the green-haired man, Levi. His sharp tone scared his companion, who was shaking his head.

"Honestly, Ansel. I said I was going to get firewood. We've been a team long enough for you not to second guess me." Levi muttered, quite fed up with his team mate questioning his actions.

"Are you okay?"Ansel inquired. "You seem like you're in a worse mood than usual."

"Whatever." Levi huffed. "I'm going to go on a walk. I'll bring back firewood so we can eat."

With that, he walked off.

When Levi got to a river that was blocking his path, he stopped walking. He crouched on the riverbank, deciding that since he was there anyway, he might as well wash up. He submerged his hands into the cold water and caught sight of his reflection. His was knitting his eyebrows, and his mouth was fixed in a scowl. He thought about Ansel's words from earlier. "... _You're in a worse mood than usual."_

Levi sighed. "Why _am_ I so down in the dumps?" He asked himself. A ripple formed in the clear surface of the river. Levi's first thought was that it had started to rain, but another drop fell, and he could tell that it wasn't from the sky.

He cursed. "Why am I crying?" He asked himself. But he knew why. The tears kept streaming down his face, and the sorrow overtook him. He keeled over, clutching his cold hands to his chest in a futile hope of stopping the pain that was ripping its way out of his heart.

Reluctantly, he answered his own question. He tried to say it out loud, but the words stuck in his throat. He made do with thinking them to himself.

 _He would have been ten today._

* * *

 **Back in Magnolia...**

Natsu and his daughter had been making their way around Magnolia for the better part of the morning, and into noon. They had stopped at countless street vendors, with no luck.

 _What gives?_ Natsu asked himself. _This quest was supposed to be easy as pie! Stupid snow globe..._

The request simply stated that someone had stolen a family heirloom from the client- a magic snow globe. The mission was to find it. "It is most likely to be in one of the street vendors, being sold," Was what the request page said. It then went on to give a brief description of the missing snow globe. When Natsu first saw the request, he wrote it off as nothing he would waste time over. _Why would somebody contact a wizard guild over a_ snow globe _of all things?_ He had thought. The ending line of the request answered Natsu's question, more or less. "I would go looking for it myself, but I am an elderly man, and I don't think I would make it very far outside on my own."

Nashi's stomach growling is what made Natsu realize how long they had been out.

"Hey, kid. Why don't we take a break?" He asked. "Let's go get some food, okay?"

"I'm not hungry." Nashi protested. She was in a mood because she thought they would be going on a "real adventure". To her, this was just a casual walk around town, and she was bitterly disappointed, to say the least.

Natsu didn't even try to argue with his daughter. "Well, _I'm_ hungry. So let's take a break, alright?" He said. _And I've really gotta find a bathroom..._

Nashi's response was a puff of air blown sharply through her nose. Natsu took this as her form of agreement with the plan, so he took her hand and led her away from the stand of antiques they were currently standing over, in the direction of the food side of town.

"So, what do you want to eat? You can pick anything you want!" He said excitedly, in an attempt to cheer her up.

Nashi considered his offer for a few steps, trying to find some way to argue with it. Then she remembered the pancake shop a few blocks into town. They didn't normally go there because Lucy said it was too expensive for their family of four. _But now there's only two..._ she reasoned. "Can we go to the pancake place, Daddy?" She asked.

Natsu glanced down at his daughter's face and was happy with her expression. Her features were arranged in a perfect show of excitement and anticipation, and her deep brown eyes were lit up. He knew exactly where she wanted to go, and was halfway expecting that she ask to be taken to this particular pancake shop. "Of course we can go there, sweetheart. I said you could pick anything, didn't I?"

Nashi's whole manner seemed to liven up when she was told she could eat at her favorite place, and she started tugging her father's arm so he would move faster. "Come on, Daddy! Come _on_!" She ordered, skipping up the sidewalk.

Natsu was happy with himself; not only had he cheered his daughter up, he was also getting food. Sadly, they had barely made it past the last street vendor by now, and Natsu had to use the bathroom. He scanned his surroundings and was very pleased when he saw an outhouse just across the street.

"Nashi." He said.

"What?"

"I've gotta use the bathroom. There's one right there," He pointed. "So let's cross the street, okay?"

"Okay!" Normally, Nashi would've impatiently insisted that Natsu wait until they got to the restaurant, but she was in an agreeable mood, so she crossed the street with him.

When they got to the building, Natsu was severely disappointed. It didn't have a family bathroom, and Nashi was too old to go into the men's room with Natsu. He almost told Nashi that they would keep walking and look for a different bathroom, but he knew there weren't any others for a few blocks, and he didn't think he could make it that far. He turned to his daughter.

"Nashi." He said, in a no-nonsense tone. "You have to wait out here, okay? You put your hand _here_ ," -He took her hand and placed it on the wall closest to the door- "and if anybody tries to touch you or talk to you, you scream, okay? Do you understand?"

Nashi nodded. "I yell if anybody tries to take me!" She repeated confidently.

"Okay. I'll be right in here. You stay _right there._ Okay? Don't leave!" And he walked into the men's room.

Nashi looked around the parking lot that the bathroom was by. It was empty, if not for the handful of vendors arranged in a line. There were a few people roaming around, looking for something that would catch their eye. Then Nashi remembered why she had come out with her father in the first place. The snow globe!

 _Maybe one of the shops has the snow globe. I should go check! But Daddy said to stay here... but he's taking so long. I'll just go run over and see. I'll be back before he gets out for sure!_ She decided. Removing her hand from the wall, she walked the few meters to the closest vendor. There were no snow globes there, so she moved on to the next one. She was getting pretty far from the bathroom now, and all ideas of returning to the restroom were forgotten. In fact, she had forgotten that her father wasn't right behind her. She could sense a presence a few feet back, and she just assumed it was Natsu.

Nashi was looking at the fourth stall when she saw a snow globe nestled in with the rest of the belongings. She was so excited, and she turned around to tell Natsu. But instead of her father behind her, she instead ran into a green-haired man who was wearing a black cloak. The force that she bumped into him with knocked him backward into a potion vendor behind them. Remembering her dad's directions, she started screaming.

Natsu, having come out of the bathroom to find his daughter missing, felt his blood run cold when he heard a high pitched scream. _Nashi!_ He knew it was her calling out. _I told her to stay right here, dammit!_ He was already running towards where the scream came from.

The scene was not what he was expecting. His daughter was on the ground, next to a wrecked stall. A middle-aged woman, who Natsu assumed was the owner of the stall, was crouched down. Nashi's head was in her lap, and the shop-owner had a panicked look on her face.

"What did you do?!" Natsu roared, pushing the woman away from his daughter. "What happened?!"

"I didn't do anything! She ran into some guy, and he fell onto my table of potions. He broke a few of the bottles, and I think she might've gotten some of the potions in her mouth, since she was screaming-" The woman was trying to explain what had happened, but Natsu interrupted her.

"She ran into somebody?" Natsu's head was already swiveling, looking for anybody who was close to them. This didn't do much good, however, because a small group had gathered around. Undoubtedly, they were the shopkeepers of the neighboring stalls, as well as the customers that had been mindlessly roaming. "Where is he now?"

"He ran away a few seconds after you got here. It looks like he disappeared..." She trailed off.

Natsu felt his heart racing. His daughter was in his arms, and she was completely relaxed. Not in a 'getting comfortable' way. In the way that Natsu would imagine a dead person would be.

"Why is she so still?" Nasu asked. His voice had lost all emotion now.

"I honestly don't know. Like I said, she got some of the liquid brews in her mouth, but I don't know which ones they could've been, since so many were broken."

"What's going to happen to her?" Natsu asked. His voice was grim this time. both he and the woman knew what he was really asking.

"Nothing that I sell can kill somebody, if that's what you are referring to. And she only swallowed a little bit, so it won't have that long of an effect... I think."

"What do you mean, you _think_?!" Natsu was mad again. The woman opened her mouth to explain herself, but Natsu didn't even let her start. "Never mind." _I'm going to take her back to the guild and see_ _if they can do anything for her. His ears didn't even register the shopkeeper;s apologies, and he didn't think to offer his help in cleaning the broken glass from the street._

He picked up Nashi and carried her, bridal style, all the way back to the guild, all the while thinking only one thing.

 _What am I going to do?_

* * *

A/N: MWAHAHAHAHAHA! Sorry about the cliffhanger (kinda not sorry at all :) ), but if I wrote the next scene, the chapter would be too long. Sorry! I'm thinking that I'll be updating maybe once or twice a week now, since I've written three chapters this week _already_... So be on the lookout for chapter 4 sometime in the next week or week after (it won't be tomorrow or the day after, I'll be busy, and that's too soon, I think). I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and hopefully you'll leave a review for me :). Also, somebody faved the story, and followed it! (Actually, it might've been two different people, but I'm not sure if I can even check that... can you? If you know how to see, would you please PM me? Sorry, new user...) But anyway, thank you/both of you! It means a lot to me :) And shout out to the first reviewer! Thank you so much! (I don't remember your username, or I would put it here, and I'm to lazy to check. Sorry!)

That's all for now. Bye!

-K


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Hi guys! Just wanted to say a quick thank you to the four people that started following my story and the three that favorited it! Thank you, guys! Now, back to the story!

 **Disclaimer: I own no part of Fairy Tail**

* * *

Levi had been following Natsu and his daughter for quite a while now.

Once he and Ansel emerged from the forest, they wandered around until they came into the civilized part of town. After that, it didn't take long for them to spot the family of two. After a short time of indecision, it was decided that they should split up. Levi would follow the Dragneels and hopefully get some information from them, and Ansel would scout out the town for the Fairy Tail guild hall. They would meet back up at 2 o'clock.

Levi found that it was pretty simple to follow the pair, and he had been doing so for about an hour. Once they left the vendors, so did Levi. When he saw they were heading for a bathroom, he hung back until they wouldn't be able to see him cross the street.

Once he was across, he saw the child wandering around the stalls, but he didn't see her pink-haired father anywhere. He began following the girl, partly because that was what he was supposed to do, and partly because his parental side felt the need to protect her.

He tailed her for awhile longer, and then she turned around abruptly and ran right into him. He was knocked backward into the stand of potions he was looking at, and he could feel most of them breaking under him. To his shock, the girl started screaming. Loudly.

One of the potions that were knocked off the table spilled into her open mouth. She spit most of it out, but he could tell she swallowed some of it as well. Since he didn't want people to think he had hurt her, he ran away from the wreckage, to the meeting spot he had established with Ansel earlier.

He could hear Natsu's cries of alarm when he found his Nashi.

* * *

The Fairy Tail guild doors were thrown open with a swift kick from Natsu, who practically flew into the infirmary with Nashi in his arms.

The guild members were in varying states of shock, but none were as panicked as Lucy. She had migrated to the bar with Mirajane a half hour ago, after Stella fell asleep on the couch. She turned in shock when the doors flew open and got a good look at Natsu's determined face and the way he rushed to the infirmary with Nashi. That's when he knew something was off.

She hopped off her barstool and started after Nastu. The rest of the guild snapped out their trance when Lucy moved, and they all started pouring into the infirmary after her. Worried shouts of "What happened?" "Is Nashi alright?" "Who's hurt?" floated in the air, but were left unanswered. Porlyusica was summoned by Master Makarov.

In the few minutes it took for Porlysica to arrive, it was silent. The tension in the room could've been cut with one of Erza's swords. Lucy was crouching on the side of the bed, staring at her daughter's face. Nastu was pacing, his brow furrowed and his arms crossed. Stella, woken by all the commotion, wandered into the room. When she saw her sister, she ran to the bed side.

"...Sissy?"

Natsu's pacing stopped, and his fist slammed into a nightstand that had the misfortune of being next to him. "Dammit! When is Porlyusica getting here?!" He cried.

"Relax, I'm right here." Said a voice behind him. Natsu turned around, and sure enough, Porlyusica was making her way into the room. "You." She pointed to Natsu, "You can stay. The rest of you, out. I don't need a crowd hovering over me."

The guild didn't seem to be moving fast enough for the pink-haired woman. "I said get OUT!" She yelled. After that, the everybody filed out of the infirmary, into the main guild room.

'C'mon, Stella." Lucy quietly said. When her five-year-old didn't move, Lucy took her by the hand and led her to the door. Then she turned back and glanced at her eldest child. Porlyusica reassured her that Nashi would be fine, and "Would you just leave already?" So Lucy walked out.

Once the room was cleared, Porlyusica turned to Nastu, who hadn't moved since she walked in.

"So, what happened?" She asked.

 **xXXx**

Lucy was worried, to say the least. Her daughter had been harmed, and she wasn't allowed to stay with her. The whole guild was shooting her worried looks, and she could only stare absentmindedly at the infirmary door, waiting for any form of news about Nashi.

The only sounds in the room were of the other children asking their parents what had happened, and somewhere in the background, Gajeel muttering something. It took Lucy a while to understand what it was that he was saying, and when she did, she felt horrible. It had been almost exactly what she had been thinking.

"I should've gone with them."

 **xXXx**

It was roughly an hour before Porlyusica came out of the room, Natsu close behind her. He looked crushed, as if he had been crying.

There was a moment of silence as the guild waited for them to start talking.

"The child will be okay."

A huge sigh of relief went through the whole guild. Then they started to ask questions.

"When will she wake up?" "What happened?" "Is _Natsu_ okay? He's not hurt too, is he?" "What were you guys _doing_ , Nastu?!" "How badly was she hurt?"

Porlyusica held her hand up to silence the questions, then began answering them. "She seems to have swallowed a mixture of magic potions. From what I can tell, there were two main ones. One of them was a paralysis potion- meaning that she wouldn't be able to move even if she _was_ awake. The other-"

She was interrupted by shouts from the guild. " _When_ will she wake up?", "What's the other potion?", "How did she swallow potion in the first place?", and the ever-present question: "What happened when you two were out, Natsu?".

This time, it was Lucy that held up her hand to silence them. "Please, everybody. Let her explain. I'd like to know how my daughter is doing." She said in a calm tone. Once everybody was quiet, she nodded at Porlusica to continue.

"Thank you." She said to Lucy. Then she turned to address the guild. "As I was saying. The other potion was a magic draining one. Normally, such a small dose wouldn't do so much harm, but she's so small, and it was paired with the paralysis. I can only assume that the two had complimentary ingredients, which would explain why they're having such a large impact. And there might've been others that she swallowed, but I can't tell. I have no way of knowing what was in the potions she drank, so I cannot estimate when she will wake up... or if she _will_ wake up. I'm sorry."

Lucy felt her heart drop to her stomach and her eyes fill with tears. "You mean... she might... _not_... wake up?" She squeaked out. Porlyusica's silence said more than her words ever could've. Lucy started sobbing and fell to her knees. _What if my little girl never wakes up?_ She thought. She wasn't the only one who was crying over the news. Mirajane was crying onto Elfman's shoulder, who was trying to keep his resolve from cracking. The rest of the parents in the guild were also shedding tears over the news. Most of them thought of Nashi as their niece, and even the mere _possibility_ of losing her was crushing.

Nastu crossed the room to comfort Lucy. He held her for a few minutes, trying not to cry himself. But he knew he had to tell everybody that it was his fault, to share the story. _The guild has a right to know,_ he thought. So he squeezed Lucy one more time and stood up. Levy rushed to Lucy's side and started to do what Natsu had been doing; patting her back and hugging her. But Levy's firm baby bump only made Lucy sadder. _What if I lose_ my _baby?_ And she wept harder.

Most eyes had turned to Natsu now. They could tell that he was about to say something important, and they were waiting in suspense.

"It's my fault." He started. And the whole story came tumbling out; about looking through the vendors, deciding to stop for lunch, the way Nashi's eyes lit up when they made plans to go to the pancake place together, and finally, the way his heart stopped when she wasn't where he left her, only to find her passing out on the concrete in a bed of broken glass.

Lucy had stopped crying about halfway through his story, though she had been listening the whole time. 'Natsu..." She croaked. "Natsu, it's not your fault. I would've done the same thing in your place." She reassured him. The rest of the guild chimed in with similar condolences, trying to get him to cheer up.

Natsu's only response was a half-hearted smile that seemed to say "Thanks for trying, guys. But it doesn't help."

"So... what do we do?" Asked a voice towards the back of the room. It was Cana, who had obviously been shedding some tears herself.

Porlyusica looked at the expectant faces of the guild. "We wait." Was her simple answer. "I'll stay with her so I can monitor her."

"Can I see her?" Lucy asked.

The old healer looked at the desperate mother and nodded. She knew if she did anything but say yes, Lucy would nag or start crying again, and she was already getting fed up with people today.

Lucy started walking to the infirmary, and most of the guild followed her.

 _There they go, like sheep. All they can do is follow each other... well, that and be annoying._ She thought to her self.

Once she reached the bed where Nashi was, Lucy looked down at her daughter's face. It was peaceful, like she was having a really good dream. Her hands had been folded onto her stomach, and she was lying on her back. The only movement from the small eight-year-old was the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.

"I'm sorry, Luce," Natsu said. He had tears in his eyes, and Lucy could see that he blamed himself for letting his daughter get hurt.

Lucy opened her mouth to tell him again that it wasn't his fault, but she was interrupted by a sudden, loud crash from the front room of the guild.

Every pair of eyes shifted to the entrance of the guild, even though none of them could see it from the infirmary. They waited in suspense until Master Makarov cried, "We're under attack! Shield the children!"

The room slowly exploded into discord while all the parents started to round up their kids and hide them wherever they could find a spot. The rest of the guild stepped out of the room to defend the guild hall, as well as the children and parents.

There was a cloud of dust and rubble where the guild's front door had once been, and in it stood two silhouettes, illuminated by the evening light. Before the guild members could see who was attacking, a deep voice called out to them.

"Just give us Jellal, and nobody gets hurt."

* * *

A/N: Once again, MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Cliff hanger! (Don't worry, I won't be able to resist the urge to write another chapter for more than a few days) Anyway, how was that? It was kind of slow, so, sorry about that. I recently realized that all the chapters have taken place during the same day so far... *makes cringy face* I'll try to speed up the pace! Sorry! Anyhoo, I hope you liked this chapter! Please leave a review, and keep reading! I'll try to pick up the pace.

Also, for those of you who mind swearing, I promise it won't get any worse than the occasional "dammit". I don't usually swear, but I felt like it was necessary in order to get the point across more directly.

P.S. Sorry if the word "potion" was overused in this chapter- I just couldn't find a synonym, so I had to use it a billion times!


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Hi again! Another quick thank you for all the people that followed this story, as well as favorited it! I really do appreciate it! :) That's all for now, so keep reading!

(Also, I've realized that I haven't mentioned Happy or the other Exceeds yet. My bad! They will be in this chapter, so don't worry!)

 **Disclaimer: I own no part of Fairy tail**

* * *

 _"Just give us Jellal, and nobody gets hurt."_

The guild was suspended in shock. Nobody understood what the man meant- what could they want with Jellal? Most people turned to look at the blue-haired mage, who had come out of the infirmary when he heard his name spoken. They searched his face for any semblance of recognition as to who these men might've been or why they were looking for him. To their dismay, Jellal looked just as unsure as they felt.

The men in the doorway were not stupid. They knew who Jellal was the moment the whole foolish guild swiveled to look at a blue-haired man near the back of the room.

"So that's him?" Asked the other man in the doorway. His voice was slightly higher than his companion's, and a touch softer- there was almost a sympathetic ring to it.

By now the dust had settled, and the guild could see that the two men were wearing thick, heavy cloaks. They couldn't see any features of the men except their hands. One pair was silky and perfect, the other deeply scarred.

The first man- the one with the scarred hands- didn't wait for confirmation before beginning to advance into the guild. He was headed straight for the wizard with the red mark on his confused face. He was so focused on his target that he didn't see the flying ball of pink-haired fury as it zoomed towards him, punching him squarely in the jaw. There was a sickening crunch as fist made contact with bone, and Natsu could tell he had most likely broken something in his hand. Natsu couldn't put his finger on it, but something about this particular man's scent was irritating him; it was familiar, but he couldn't place where from.

The scarred man staggered backward, momentarily confused. This, of course, gave Natsu an opportunity to land another punch. The hood of his cloak was knocked backward, and Natsu could see that the face he was punching was a mask of scars under a blanket of forest-green hair. Natsu's temper roared as he realized why the man's scent was so off-putting. _This man's scent was on Nashi when I found her. He must've been the idiot that ran into her!_ There was a stream of blood and swearing as Natsu beat up the intruder, but he was pulled off by Gray before he was even close to being satisfied with the damage he was inflicting.

"Take it easy, Natsu," Gray said. Natsu roared in protest, wanting so badly to explain why the man made him so angry, but he was unable to talk around the burning wall of rage that was building in his chest. Gray extended a hand to help the man on the floor to his feet. "Give them a chance to explain themselves. Maybe they're not-" There was a shooting pain in Gray's face, rendering him unable to finish his order for peace. It took him a few seconds for the pain to dull enough for him to understand that he had been punched.

The man who had punched Gray burst into thin air, which was confusing, to say the least.

Natsu shook off Gray's hold and ran to where the man's smell was the strongest. He was stopped by Lucy and Happy, who were trying to talk to him and calm him down. He tried to focus on her face, but the anger inside him made it impossible to understand what they were saying or who they were.

After they shook off the bafflement of witnessing a man literally vanish into thin air, the rest of the guild started looking around for the cloaked men as well. They turned their heads in time to see two billowing silhouettes running into the distance, towards the direction of the sun. Natsu and Gray simultaneously started to run after them, but Lucy and Juvia caught them before they could get to the door.

"Natsu... Now isn't the time. Let it go, okay?" Lucy begged, her words finally registering in Natsu's brain.

"You might be hurt, Gray. You need to be checked by Porlyusica for injuries. And Lucy's right; now isn't the time."

The furious men huffed a few times to calm themselves down before agreeing with their wives. Natsu reached his hand up to Lucy's face so that he could tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, but was met with shooting pain up his whole arm instead. Wincing, he sucked air through his teeth and grasped at the base of his pinkie, which was where the pain was originating.

"Yikes, Natsu. I think Juvia's right. You and Gray should go get checked out. That might be something serious." Said Lucy as she dragged Natsu to where Porlyusica was waiting. The healer led the two men to a table and began to assess their injuries.

Meanwhile, the rest of the guild was forming a large circle around the room so that they could talk.

"Jellal, what was that all about?" Erza asked.

"I don't know. I don't think I've ever seen them before..."

"You have no clue why they're targeting you?" Asked Mira.

"I'm sorry, but I don't." He responded. He really did look apologetic, like he was somehow blaming himself for all the misfortune of the day.

"You only just joined our guild about a year ago... I didn't think it was common knowledge that you were with _us_ now." Said Mira, thinking to herself. "How did they find you?"

Mira was right. Although Jellal and Erza had been together for close to five years now, Jellal had only recently joined Fairy Tail- only a year and a half ago, after he went on his last mission with his old guild, Crime Sorciaire. He came back from that quest- a demon-slaying expedition, if Erza remembered correctly- and broke the news that his guild was splitting up. Erza, of course, suggested that he join Fairy Tail. It took several weeks of pleading, but he eventually got branded with the Fairy Tail crest and was excepted as a true member of the guild.

"Umm... Guys? Look at this." Said Cana. She had wandered to the gaping hole in the wall that was once the door, hoping to find some way to fix it. But instead of finding hinges or a slab of wood, she found a note. It said:

 _We warned you._

 _You should've handed him over._ _We'll be back._

 _Brace yourselves, Fairy Tail._

 _This was the biggest mistake you ever made._

The note was passed around, and reading it only added to the confusion of everybody in the guild. What had they done wrong? What had _Jellal_ done that would make the so angry at him?

Master Makarov spoke up. "It looks like we're preparing for battle again, children." An air of seriousness settled in the room. This wasn't their first battle by a long shot, but they still managed to get nervous. It didn't help that this was their first real issue since all the children had been born, so now they had them to think about.

"What's the plan, Master?" Erza asked. She was already pushing the pre-battle nerves aside, gearing up to fight the men who had threatened her husband.

"Well, it would help to know _why_ they're targeting you... Jellal? You don't know anything about them?"

Jellal opened his mouth to explain again that no, he had no clue who they were, but Lucy beat him to it.

"Do you think... could they've been from the Tower of Heaven?" She asked.

The whole guild was silent while they tossed the idea around in their minds. It was Jellal who broke the silence.

"Yes, they could have been. I wasn't exactly paying great attention to who was there at the time, so I suppose so... There's just one problem. Why would they attack _now_? Why not when I was in a smaller guild and had less protection?"

Mira answered his inquiries. "Well, they might not have been able to track you down until recently. Your old guild was always on the move, right? It would've been hard to find such a small target in such a big world even if you were stationary, but add in the fact that it's a moving target, and you've got yourself an even bigger challenge."

"Yes, that makes sense," Erza confirmed. Mira flashed a smug smile at Erza, an old habit from when they used to fight in their pre-teen years. "But what's the plan, then?" Erza continued. "If they really are coming back, and I'd rather not doubt that they are, we have to have some sort of plan. We don't want to be taken off guard again."

Yuki, who had been nestled in the corner of the infirmary with her brother, was growing tired. She made her way to the circle of adults that were in the middle of the room and tugged on her mom's sleeve.

"Momma?" Asked the five-year-old. "I'm getting ti-" She was interrupted by her own yawn. Once she was able to speak again, she finished her sentence, then promptly leaned against her mom and closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry, baby. You're probably really overwhelmed, huh?" Erza reached down to scoop up her daughter and rocked her in her arms. Then a thought struck her. "Guys... what'll we do about the children? They can't stay here... we can't put them in harm's way. But we can't all stay with them either. We need to fight."

Lucy understood exactly what Erza was getting at. She had been worrying about what she would do with Nashi and Stella. Porlyusica said she needed to stay with Nashi, but they couldn't stay here, could they?

"Why don't we leave them with Levy?" She suggested after a moment of thought. "She can't fight, not in her condition. We can just herd all the kids at my place and the rest of us can go fight."

Gajeel immediately saw a flaw in Lucy's reasoning. "But what if the house gets attacked? Isn't your place pretty out in the open? It is a possibility, and Levy wouldn't be able to protect the kids _or_ herself if there was a serious issue. Why don't I stay with them too?"

"You can't, Gajeel. You're one of our most valuable fighters. Someone else can stay with Levy, but I don't think it can be you." Cana cut in.

"Well, who else would be willing to sit out of the fight?!" He roared. He was getting possessive. He didn't want Levy or their baby to get hurt, and he thought he was the most capable of taking care of them.

Lucy was beginning to get frustrated. Nothing seemed to be working out today. Nashi was hurt, the guild was attacked, and now they couldn't figure out what to do with themselves.

"...I can do it." Said a voice in the back of the room. It was Lisanna, who was surrounded by all the Fairy Tail children that had been hidden away. _She must've gone to get them._ Lucy thought. "I don't mind sitting out from the battle, and I really do love kids! They'll be safe with me and Levy... if that's okay?"

Lucy huffed a sigh of relief. Lucy trusted Lisanna with her life, and would gladly place the care or her kids in her hands any day. She remembered the day their friendship took root, and it made her smile...

* * *

 **Eight and a half years ago...**

 _Lucy and Natsu had just returned from a week-long mission and announced the news of their engagement to the guild._

 _"It's about time!" Cana called._

 _"I can't believe you made her wait until she was 20 to propose to her, you fire-brained wimp!" Gray yelled. Natsu knew that was just Gray's unique way of congratulating him, and it only made his smile grow wider._

 _'When's the wedding?" Asked Mira_

 _There were several forms of congratulations being called out from every point in the room, ranging from sincere to playful and back to sincere again._

 _Lucy, who was also glowing with happiness, was looking around the room. Her eyes met Lisanna's, and her stomach turned. She knew Lisanna had a thing for Natsu, and she couldn't help feeling like she had wrecked that for her. Although there was no part of her that regretted saying yes to Natsu, Lisanna and Natsu had been friends for as long as Lisanna had been in the guild. Lucy couldn't help feeling a little guilty for stealing him from her._

 _Lisanna, catching wind of Lucy's emotions, approached the newly engaged couple. She took Lucy by the hand and brushed off Natsu's protests as she led her away._

 _"Just let me congratulate her, woman to woman!" Lisanna called back._

 _Once they were alone in the kitchen, Lisana started talking._

 _"I know what you're thinking, and don't even go there. I'm so happy for you, Lucy!"_

 _"But Lisanna, I know how you feel-"_

 _"Lucy. It's true that Natsu and I are good friends, but it's nothing more than that. You have to understand that when I was in Edolas, I had been silently letting go of this life, piece by piece. I never thought I would be able to return here, and when I did, it was a miracle. So yes, maybe I do still like Natsu a little bit. But it would have been extremely selfish to come back here thinking I had some sort of childish claim over him when I had been in Edolas all that time trying to forget him. So please don't worry about me. I really am_ so _happy for the both of you."_

 _Lucy had tears in her eyes now. She was so relieved that there were no hard feelings between the two of them. They embraced, and Lucy could feel that Lisanna meant every word she had spoken._

* * *

 **Present day**

"Of course!" Lucy exclaimed. "That's a wonderful idea, Lis!"

"I guess..." Said Gajeel. Levy chuckled at him. She knew that as much as Gajeel didn't want to admit it, he really trusted the white-haired takeover mage.

"Only one problem. Where are we going to stay?" Lisanna asked. "Gajeel had a point, Lucy. Your house is too out in the open. And besides, I think it would be better if Porlyusica and Nashi stayed there, anyway. But my place is too small, and I'm guessing that Levy's is as well. Right?" She looked at Porlyusica first for confirmation, then at Levy. Both people nodded their heads. "So where will we go, then?"

Mira chuckled. "Oh, Lis. Why don't you just use my house? It's pretty far out in the country, and it's pretty big." She offered. Lisanna smiled as she remembered her sister's house. It was on the outskirts of Magnolia, where it wasn't very busy. There weren't very many neighbors, and the house was large enough to hold the four kids and two women.

"That sounds perfect!" Said Lucy, with a sizeable yawn afterward. "But we'll have to continue planning in the morning. I'm beat."

"Me too," Stella said. "I'm a beet, too. I need to go to sweep." Lucy chuckled at her daughter's phrase and picked her up.

Porlyusica, having finished examining the two men who were injured in the fight, handed them back to their wives. She reported that Natsu had fractured his pinkie, and he had a cast on to prove it. Gray seemed to escape with nothing but a major headache. Lucy chuckled at Natsu's obvious hatred for the binding plaster on his hand and led him to the door with Stella in tow and Nashi in her arms. Nashi had been cleared by Porlyusica to go home.

"But I'll be there tomorrow to look after her, so you can leave once I get there, okay?" The whole guild laughed at Porlyusica's not-so-subtle way of kicking the Dragneel's out of their own house.

Having agreed that it was getting pretty late, everybody started walking out of the guild hall through the nonexistent door. They all went home and to bed, but they'd be lying if they said that any of them got a good night's sleep.

* * *

 **In a park, not far from Fairy Tail...**

A small, twelve-year-old girl nestles herself under a cherry blossom tree onto a bed of grass, determined to get comfortable. Lying on her back, she looks up at the stars. _T_ _hey're so pretty._ She thinks. _I wonder if he can see them too._

The girl's eyelids start to feel heavy, and she gives no resistance as they force themselves closed. She's had a long day, and she knows she will have several more like this one ahead of her.

Rolling onto her side, she mumbles something slurred with sleep before she is whisked away into the world of dreams.

"I wonder if I'll find you tomorrow... Papa."

* * *

 **A/N:** As is the tradition now, I left off with a cliff hanger. I don't think this one's as bad as the other ones, right? I want to tell you more about the girl in that last part, but I can't! Because I have to keep you on your toes! GRRRRR! I wanna tell you exactly who she is and how important she is, but I CAN'T! ;(

I guess I revealed a little more than I wanted to there... Oh well. I didn't divulge any top-secret information, so I'll keep it there.

Anyway... how was Lisanna's backstory? I hope you guys liked it! I finally ended the first day. Gosh, it only took me five chapters to do it. I hope you guys will keep reading, maybe even leave a review!

-K


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I own no part of Fairy Tail**

* * *

The little girl stretched her back as she woke; sleeping on the ground under a tree was not exactly restful.

 _Oh well... It's not like I haven't done it before._ She thought.

She was still half in her dreams as she sat up and brushed the dirt and grass from her wavy brown hair. She sat under the tree for a while longer, letting her mind wander while watching the sun make its way into the sky. One of the advantages of sleeping outside is that you woke when the sun did, not only giving you a beautiful view of the sunrise, but an early start on the day as well.

"Good morning, Princess. Up early this morning, I see."

Her head jerked to the sound of her father's voice, though she knew he wasn't actually there. She was daydreaming about when he would greet her in the morning when she woke. These days, he was hardly home anymore, and her brain had been fabricating visions of him. She couldn't help it; over the past year, she watched as her parents grew more and more distant, not only from each other, but from her as well.

 _It's because of what happened when..._ She couldn't bring herself to finish the thought. It was too painful to dwell on the past, especially since this particular one was what had torn her family apart.

She shook the thoughts out of her head and put her black glasses on over her brilliant teal eyes, and watched as the world slowly came into focus.

 _I should probably get going. I've got to talk find Reiki today. Then maybe he'll help me find Papa..._

 **xXXx**

It was almost 11 o'clock in the morning when she found the guild of her former friend Reiki. She hadn't seen him in a little over a year, but her dad talked about him sometimes. Hesitantly, she opened the door to the guild and walked in.

It was a very calm establishment, from what she'd heard, but she was still unsure. She peeked in and was happy to find that there were several groups of people sitting and talking. She was very pleased- her home guild was loud and rowdy, and she hated it.

Seeing the peaceful scene of the guild settled her nerves, and she walked to the closest member of the guild and tapped him on the shoulder. He was quite large, she noticed.

"What?" He asked as he turned around. He had a buzz cut of what she guessed had been blue hair and small brown eyes.

"Umm... I'm looking for Reiki. Is he here?" She asked.

"Who?"

"Reiki. Reiki Woods? Isn't he in this guild...?" A sense of dread made its way to her bones as she thought about the possibility of entering the wrong building.

Then the man spoke again. "Oh! Woods! Yeah, we got 'im here!" Then he turned and bellowed, "REIKI! THERE'S A GIRL HERE FOR YOU!" Then he turned to the girl and asked her name.

"I-It's Hana." She said. She could feel herself getting flustered. _Maybe I started talking to the wrong person..._

"SHE SAYS HER NAME'S HANA!" He called out again. Then he turned to her. "That's a very beautiful name, by the way. Hana... like a flower."

Hana was saved from saying anything more as a green-haired teen came towards them and stood next to the man. Reiki noticed the embarrassed look on Hana's face and turned towards the man.

"Have you been hassling her, Ryuji? Goodness, look at her face! What did you say?"

"I didn't say anythin' rude, I don't think. Did I, Miss Hana?"

Hana could feel her face get redder when he called her "Miss". Reiki sighed and grabbed her hand without so much as a hello and led her away.

They sat down together at a booth near the back corner of the guild. That's when Reiki finally talked to her.

"Wow, Hana! Long time no see! How have you been?"

"...Alright, I guess." Then her stomach growled, quite loudly. Reiki just laughed and called for a waitress.

"Wait, Reiki. I don't have any money." She said.

"Then I guess I'm paying!" He responded cheerfully. She could tell that he didn't mind buying her lunch, and that made her even more happy to see her old friend. It had been too long.

Reiki and Hana had been friends since she had been born. Although he was five years older than her, they became best friends from the second their eyes met. The adults in their old guild used to joke about them maybe getting married someday, but they knew their relationship was more of a sister/brother one.

"So what've you been up to?" Reiki asked Hana.

"Oh, um... Just, stuff. I guess."

He scoffed. "What was _that_ answer? I haven't seen you in a year and you only visit because I'm buying you food? Humph." Reiki twisted his face into a mock pout that made Hana laugh. He did that when they were kids, too.

"That's not it, Rei." She reassured him.

He turned his sapphire blue eyes to look into her teal ones, and she was struck by how beautiful he was. The color of his olive green hair matched with his eyes was perfect, like looking into a clear pond in the middle of a forest. She was about to continue her statement from earlier, but a waitress approached them at that moment.

"What can I get for you two?"

"Two cheeseburgers, no mustard on one of them, and two chocolate vanilla swirl milkshakes. Please." Reiki ordered without thinking.

"Whipped cream on the milkshakes?" The waitress asked.

"Yes, please. Thank you." Reiki smiled at the waitress- a woman with long red orange hair pulled away from her face and eyes that were the same shade as her hair. She smiled, told them that their food would be right out, and left.

Reiki turned to Hana. "You still don't like mustard, right?" He asked.

She was shocked that he remembered that, and she told him so. "I thought you would've forgotten by now."

"Of course not. It was kind of ingrained into my brain from the first time you tried it. You spit it out all over me, remember?"

They laughed fondly at the memory for a while, then began reminiscing about their days in their old guild. _Before it all went wrong..._ She stopped herself right there. She was not going to think about gloomy things while she was with Reiki. He wasn't sitting across from her feeling sorry for _him_ self, so she wouldn't either.

Hana was about to remind Reiki about the birthday party where they had escaped with his brother to climb the orchard trees, then got chewed out by his father. By some miracle, she remembered at the last second that they weren't supposed to talk about his brother, and she bit her tongue. Reiki noticed the way she stopped herself from talking and wanted to ask about it, but the food arrived, and she took the welcome distraction. After thanking the waitress for bringing the meal, she bit down into the burger- no mustard- and sighed. It tasted _so_ good.

Reiki watched her take bite after bite of her food before he voiced his concern.

"So, what were you going to say just now?"

She momentarily froze, a bite of half-chewed food still in her mouth. She tried to play it off like it was no big deal, but he saw right through it.

Reiki sighed. He had told his current guild about what had happened to his family a little while after he joined, and he was used to people doing this.

"Hana. I know you were about to talk about Hiro."

Her blood ran cold hearing him speak the boy's name so casually. She gave up trying to pretend she didn't almost say it herself and apologized instead. "I'm sorry, Rei."

"Don't be. It's okay." He sipped his milkshake and took a bite of his burger again. He got serious after a few seconds, then dropped a bombshell.

"It was his birthday yesterday. Well, it would've been, anyway."

Hana, once again, froze. She'd had no idea it was Hiro's birthday, and she felt bad about not knowing. "How old would he have been?" She asked.

"Ten." He answered.

"Oh." Was her only response. He was weeks from turning nine when "the incident" happened, and she was weeks from eleven. Her heart was heavy. This trip down Memory Lane had taken a bad turn, and she could feel the sorrow in all of her bones.

Reiki cleared his throat, his way of changing the subject. "So, what're you doing down here? Don't you live, like, really far away? And why don't you have any money?"

She knew that now was the time to answer these questions, which he had undoubtedly been thinking since he saw her. "I don't have any money because I had to buy a train ticket." Then she took a deep breath, looked him in the eye...

And told him everything that had happened in the past year.

* * *

 **A month before "the incident"...**

 _"...Happy birthday dear Daichi! Happy birthday to you!"_

 _The entire Tiger Claw guild cheered as the black-haired boy blew out seven candles, his two front teeth missing._

 _The Tiger Claw guild had been celebrating Daichi's birthday all day, simply because they could. They did this every time a guild member had a birthday. Tiger Claw was a guild of modest size, with only a little over thirty people. Everybody that was in Tiger Claw had been born and raised there, and everybody was probably related in some way, though there was no way to be sure._

 _Attached to the guild was a small village where the members could stay with their families, and there was also a field about a half mile in the other direction from the guild hall, where they grew their own food._

 _Tiger Claw hadn't always been a guild hall. It was a farm before, but the family kept growing and growing until they had to remodel the house, and eventually, one of the family members was found to have magical abilities, and all her descendants inherited it from her. The family continued to grow until there were only magic-users in the house, and they decided to turn their farm into a full-fledged guild._ _The birthday parties were something that even their ancestors had done._

 _At this particular birthday party, there was a scheming 16-year-old and his almost-eleven-year-old best friend. They were both pretty introverted, and shared an equal hatred for parties with the 16-year-old's nine-year-old brother. They had all been planning to escape to the orchard fields after cake, but they just couldn't wait any longer. Given the confusion that was a birthday party, it wasn't too challenging to sneak out the guild doors._

 _"Dude," Said the 16-year-old, Reiki. "Dad's gonna kill us when he finds out we left. Right, Hiro?" The question was directed at the nine-year-old, but it was the girl who answered._

 _"Oh, please. You should_ hear _my mom when she's angry."_

 _"Yeah? Does she chew you out for hours and hours, Hana? 'Cuz that's what my dad does." Hiro said. Hiro and Reiki's dad was the guild master, and he had a strong sense of what should and should not be done- and abandoning the guild in the middle of a ceremony was a_ big _"do not"._

 _"Nah. But she yells in your face, and gets all huffy if you don't seem scared of her." The threesome sighed, knowing they were in for a real lecture when they got back._

 _They had made out to the orchards by now and had picked a tree to sit under. It was a shady afternoon, but it was still hot out._

 _"So, Hana. It's_ your _birthday soon, right? How old are you turnin'?" Reiki asked, all the while picking up a pebble off the ground and fiddling with it in his hand._

 _"Eleven," Hana said, with great pride. "Papa said we could go out to the city this year. My whole family's going! Mama, Papa, Aunt Lily and Uncle Hibiki, everybody! I can't wait!" Hana talked for a while about the wonders that her father promised to show her in just a month's time. "But I'll have to miss most of Harvest, so that's too bad."_

 _Harvest was the time that the whole guild pitched in and harvested all the food from their fields and orchards, hence the name. The members divided up the day into two "shifts", one in the morning and one in the afternoon, with a break for lunch in the middle. There were usually about ten days of Harvest, meaning twenty shifts. Mostly, a guild member would work two or three shifts, all spaced out as much as the guild could afford._

 _Reiki groaned. "I have first shift this season. That's the worst because you can't say you can't find anything in the trees because it's the first day, so of course, there's something! You're expected to work harder than the other shifts because they think it's easier. 'You don't have to strain yer eyes lookin' fer fruit, it's right in fronta you!' " Reiki sighed, mocking the older men in the guild. "_ And, _as it first shift isn't bad enough, I have to harvest from the_ trees _! I have to climb up onto the small limbs of some fruit tree and throw the fruit down to a guy with a basket. And I don't even get to eat any of it!"_

 _Hiro giggled at his brother's frustration. "I don't have to help until sixth shift!"_

 _Reiki's irritation quickly turned to a playful fighting mood. "You think that's funny, little man? Wanna switch and see how you like it when I tease_ you _?" Reiki started chasing Hiro around the orchard, and Hana quickly joined in._

 _Eventually, they were out of breath and in the trees, racing to see who could climb to the top the fastest. Hiro was winning._

 _"It's just 'cuz you weigh next to nothing, you shrimp!" Hana playfully yelled at him, climbing higher in her tree._

 _"Yeah, right! You're just jealous because I'm faster than you!" Hiro called back in the same tone._

 _"Whatever, you guys. We all know_ I'm _the fastest." Reiki called from his place on the ground. He hadn't figured out where he could put his hands to scale the trunk yet, and his confusion set Hana and Hiro into a fit of laughter. They climbed higher and higher into the sky, joking all the while and calling insults back and forth until the sun had set and they could hear Reiki's dad angrily shouting their names._

 _"Guess we've been found out," Hiro said._

 _They climbed out of their trees and ran back to the guild hall, enjoying the feeling of the wind racing through their hair as they raced each other. By then the stars were shining and the night was pitch black._

 _They were yelled at for somewhere around a half hour, and they had to apologise to Daichi, but they didn't care. Nothing could ruin the perfectness of their afternoon together._

 **Five days before "The Incident"...**

 _"C'mon, Princess! It's time to go!" Hana's father called from the bottom of the porch steps through the open front door. "We have to go say goodbye to the guild!"_

 _Hana was in her room, making sure that everything was clean and that she wasn't forgetting any of her bags. Once she was satisfied with her inspections, she made her way from her room to the front door, just in time to hear her name called again, this time by her mother._

 _"I'm right here, Mom," Hana mumbled. "We're meeting Auntie Lily and Uncle Hibiki at the station, right?"_

 _"Yes, dear. We've got to hurry now, or we might miss the train." Her mother, Hiyori, responded. Hiyori was a woman of order, and she liked things to happen exactly as she planned them. Missing the train into the city was not part of today's schedule._

 _"Easy, Hiyori. She's probably just nervous." Hana's father winked at her and extended his arm in her direction. "Shall we go, Princess? Your carriage awaits."_

 ** _xXXx_**

 _Hana was fascinated by how a person could go from excited to nervous in the span of five minutes. She was glad when the short car ride to the guild hall was over, if only so she could stretch her legs and breathe frest air._

 _There was a small crowd gathered outside of the Tiger Claw hall, and Hana knew she would be expected to say something pleasant to all of them before her family could go to the train station._

 _She hopped out of the car after it had barely stopped moving, heading towards the first person she saw. She didn't even register in her mind who it was, just answered questions that were the same with everybody she talked to._

 _"Are you excited?" "Yes."_

 _"How old are you turning?" "Eleven."_

 _"Do you know what you're going to see?" "Papa says it's a surprise."_

 _"Make sure you have fun, you hear?" "I will, thank you."_

 _After what seemed like an eternity of handshaking and fake-smiling, Hana finally found her nest friends, the Woods brothers._

 _Reiki was grinning from ear to ear as he pulled Hana into a tight embrace. "Don't grow up too much while you're away, you hear?"_

 _Hana giggled. "It's only a week, Rei."_

 _"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." The green-haired teen released Hana, who turned to Hiro and pulled him into a hug before he could react._

 _"I'll see you in a week, okay Hiro?" She said._

 _"Yeah. And I'll make you the best birthday card while you're away! That way when you come back, it'll be like it's still your birthday!" Hana laughed again, and brushed a lock of his brown hair out of his light green eyes._

 _"I'm going to miss you guys." Hana sighed._

 _Reiki smirked. "Don't. It's only a week, remember?" He mocked._

 _"Yeah. I guess."_

 _Hana's mother's sharp voice cut into their conversation. "Hana? It's time to go, okay? Hana!"_

 _"Coming, Mom!" She hollered over her shoulder. "See you guys in a week, okay?" The trio hugged one last time, and Hana receded into the crowd and got into her car._

 _She waved at the crowd as they drove to the station._

It's just a week... _She reminded herself._

 **Two days after "The Incident"...**

 _The car slowed down as the family took in the sight of their old home. It was in ruins, with mangled bodies strewn everywhere._

 _"...What happened here?" Lily asked. As if someone would answer._

 _One glance at the wreckage confirmed that nobody was alive, or would be for much longer. The horror finally set in, and the Burr family stepped out of the car and walked forward as one unit, approaching the guild hall they once called home._

 _Hibiki was the first to break down. It happened slowly._

 _He kicked something. He figured it was just a rock, and looked down. The "rock" was fleshy and shaped like a mangled hand. It was torn from the arm of its owner, who lay several feet away. The family watched as Hibiki's face drained of blood, his eyes fixed on the face of the child who'd hand he had kicked. Lily followed his gaze, and screamed as she too recognized the little girl._

 _It was Hibiki's twelve-year-old sister, Meiko. They had left her at the guild with her parents and grandparents._

 _Hibiki fell to his knees, sorrow weighing him down. If his sister was dead, his parents must be too. His whole family, the entire guild. Lily was sobbing, crouched next to her husband, to grief-ridden to help him to his feet._

 _Hana couldn't watch her aunt and uncle fall apart anymore, and she quickly turned away. Without thinking it through, she said, "I'm going to go look for survivors."_

 _Nobody heard her over the sound of Lily's screaming sobs._

 _Hana wasn't expecting to find anybody alive. She just needed to get away before her family cold see her tears leak fom her eyes. She steeled her resolve._

I won't cry unless I find them... _She thought. She was hoping against hope that she didn't come across the bodies of the boys she loved, but she knew that the possibility was very slim. She knew they were at the guild the whole time her family was gone, and she was shaking with the fear of finding their remains strewn amongst her guild mates._

 _Pretty soon, she came to the bulk of the rubble, where the guild hall had stood proud how many days ago?_ Did this happen yesterday? The day we left? What happened while we were gone?

 _She walked through the rubble, looking at the countless bodies she saw, relieved and horrified every time she identified one._

 _Sora. The little six-year-old boy that looked up to Hiro. They often told him to go away because having him around was just like babysitting._

 _Haruhi, who liked to sit at the craft table in the corner and draw. Her art was exceptional for a ten-year-old, and everybody was sure she had a future as an artist._

 _Sakura, the sixteen-year-old that had two younger brothers. She loved to cook, but was so bossy that nobody wanted her around in the kitchen._

 _Daichi... they just went to his birthday party. How could he be dead?_

 _Mr. and Mrs. Fugimoto, who always had some kind of critter running around._

 _The old lady that everybody called "Grandma" even though nobody was sure who she was actually related to._

 _Little Himi, barely three years old, wrapped in her mother's arms._

 _And Kyo. He was engaged, set to marry in just a few weeks._

 _Mrs. Saki. She was five months pregnant. She died with her hands wrapped around her stomach, trying to protect her unborn son even in her last seconds of life._

 _Hana went around closing the eyes of everybody she came across._

 _She was almost going to give up, concluding that the Woods had been as brutally murdered as the bodies around her, when she saw a white sheet of paper out of the corner of her eye._

 _Seemingly on autopilot, she walked to the square of white that was thrown into the sea of gray and red and sorrow. She tried to pick it up, but something was holding it down._

 _A hand._

 _She refused to look at the face of another victim. Refused to gaze into the empty eyes of another one of her friends as she sealed them shut forever. Instead, she focused on the paper, folded in half. There was writing on the front._

 _It took her brain several minutes to sound out the letters into words and string the words into sentences. When she did, she almost lost it._

 _In very deliberate writing, the words "Happy Birthday Hana!" were printed on the front of the card._

 _Below the words, there was a person dancing and throwing confetti, while another figure blew out candles on a cake. One had green hair, the other brown._

 _Horrified, she removed the fingers that were clutching the paper one by one so that she ould read the inside of the card._

 _"Happy birthday Hana!" Was written again, this time smaller. "I told you I would make you an awesome card, didn't I? I hope you like it. I just wanted you to know that-"_

 _And it stopped. There was no more writing, no final farewell from the writer. Just blank paper._

 _Hana already knew who had written the letter, but she looked up anyway. She started at the hand, then moved up the arm. His face was turned away from her, and she reached a shaking hand up to move it so she could see it better. It was painted with dried blood, but not marred like some of the others._

 _She could tell that he hasn't been hurt by the same monster as everybody else. He was probably crushed by the rubble, then unearthed again by wind and animals._

 _And through it all, he clutched the card he had made._

 _Hana reached up with her shaking hand to shut Hiro's green eyes, but she got lost in them instead._

 _She remembered all the times that those eyes had been full of life and amusement as they told her a joke, or relayed a story of a day when she was sick and missed something._

 _She remembered how many times he hugged her or called out a farewell at the end of the night over his shoulder, promising to see her the next day._

 _She remembered when they went on their first mission together after Reiki turned 15 and they all fought off a thief from the town. They later found out that the mission has been set up by her father, and they fumed about it for days afterward._

 _She looked into Hiro's eyes_ _and knew with certainty that she would give anything to go back and freeze time so that she would never have lost him._

 _She reread the card before bursting into tears. The numbness that a person felt only after losing next to everything overtook Hana, and she could sense nothing but crippling sorrow._

 _She didn't feel it when her father laid a hand on her shoulder in condolences, she didn't comprehend that she was being carried to the car until she was already in it, and she didn't know she had fallen asleep until she was awake again._

 _The whole family was in a similar state._

 _Hiyori was in denial that she would never quite come out of, refusing to acknowledge that anything bad had happened, that she was even awake._

 _Lily was falling headfirst down a stairwell of depression. Eventually, she would climb back out, but not for several months._

 _Hibiki had it the worst. As soon as they got to a town, he went to a bar and fell deep into a bottle of hard liquor._

 _The only one who seemed to be able to keep it together was Ansel. He talked about how things would get better, tried to be optimistic as they tried to find a place to stay._

 _But even he fell into the abyss at night, when he was at his weakest._

 _ **Three months after "The Incident"...**_

 _"I'm sorry, sir. But if you can't pay your rent_ today, _I'm going to have to ask you to leave." Said the landlord, Akira._

 _"Please," begged Ansel. "Just one more week. I'll have it all in one more week!"_

 _The landlord let an apologetic sigh through his teeth. "I'm sorry. But I just can't give you another extension. It's not fair to the other tenants."_

 _Ansel sighed. He knew the man was right. He was already a week and a half late with this month's rent as it was, and he knew asking for more time would be unfair._

 _"How long until we have to leave?" he asked, defeat creeping into every word._

 _Akira made another apologetic face. "I can let you stay until tomorrow." He said._

 _Ansel gave the man an understanding half-smile and closed the door._

 _Immediately he felt his anger_ _flare._

 _"HIBIKI!" He yelled, making his way through the cramped apartment to the kitchen, where he knew he would find Hibiki burying his pain in a bottle of alcohol._

 _He grabbed Hibiki's bottle by the neck and got in his face. "Do you know why the landlord was just here?!"_

 _Lily, having heard her brother yelling at her husband, came out of the room she shared with Hana and Hiyori._

 _"Ansel! Don't be so mean to him!" she pleaded. "He's suffering!"_

 _"So are the rest of us! But we don't have to drink up all the money! We've all snapped out of it for the most part!"_

 _Lily was seething. "You wouldn't ever yell at Hiyori like this, and we both know darn well that_ she _hasn't snapped out of it. I'm sorry that you can't buy yourself whatever piece of crap you wanted, but it wasn't his fault!"_

 _"Not his fault? He broke into the box of money I stashed away to pay rent with! He stole all of it! The landlord was here telling us we have to be out by tomorrow afternoon! You want to tell me again that it's 'not his fault'?!"_

 _Lily was speechless. When she finally found her voice, she could barely squeak out a simple question. "Hibiki? Did you steal the rent money?"_

 _Hibiki was just sober enough to understand the weight of what he'd done. "I didn't know it was the rent money." was all he could say._

 _Hana and Hiyori were standing in the kitchen now too._

 _"Papa? We have to move?" Hana asked._

 _"Yes, Princess." He said, addressing his daughter but looking at his brother-in-law. "We do. So start packing."_

 _As his family started packing away all of their belongings in their bags, Ansel began the slow process of dumping all the alcohol down the drain, right in front of Hibiki._

 _ **xXXx**_

 _The Burrs said goodbye to their home one last time while Ansel walked to the landlord's building to hand him the keys to apartment 3B, which they had inhabited for the past several months._

 _Hana remembered when they first moved in. They had to sell their car to pay the first month's rent, but Ansel promised to save enough money to get another one after they got back on their feet. She wasn't dumb enough to believe him anymore._

 _It only took about a month and a half after moving in for Lily to straighten herself out again. She would never be the same as she was before the incident, but that was to be expected. What snapped her out of her depression was her husband. She knew he had a drinking problem, and she had to get herself together if only to help him get himself back on track as well._

 _It was simpler than she would have thought to transform herself into a sane person. It took weeks, but she forced herself to go grocery shopping, and to make meals with the ingredients she bought. She dressed herself every morning and took a shower every night. After she was sure she wouldn't fall down the spiraling stairwell of despair again, she addressed Hibiki's issue._

 _At first, she tried hiding all the liquor. When he asked where it was, nearly five hours later, she told him she threw it all away. "You need to stop. It's a serious issue, and-" She couldn't even finish her sentence before Hibiki roared and hit her. She was shocked. Not only because he had struck her, but because as far as she knew, he hadn't had any alcohol for most of the morning. The error in her plan hit her almost as hard as his palm._

Withdrawl...

 _After that day, she tried more subtle ways of cutting his alcohol consumption down. She would take a bottle out of the cupboard every few hours, hoping that he would think he had drunk it. That tactic also didn't work; he just went out and bought more beer, and they ended up with too much alcohol and not enough money._

 _While Lily and Hibiki's battles were going on, Hana was also fighting one of her own. She still had the card Hiro would've given her, and she often stared at it for several hours at a time, trying to find some clue as to what he wanted to tell her._

 _When she saw her Aunt making an effort to end her grieving, she decided that she would try as well. Her ways of handling it weren't as big as Lily's. Instead of getting out of the house and doing things more outwardly, Hana receded into herself further, determined to bury her sorrow and put her best face forward. She vowed to stay out of everybody's way, thinking that if she became more self-reliant, nobody would worry about her anymore and she could stop adding to the grief of her family._

 _She often went on walks around town, looking for anything that caught her interest and would keep her out of the house for longer._

 _Hiyori wasn't the same as the other two girls in the household. She seemed to be in a permanent state of denial, still refusing to believe she actually_ lived _in this nightmare. She was convinced this whole thing was just a joke, and she was expected to play along until people popped up with streamers and a banner that said: "Just Kidding!"_

 _That left Ansel. He had shorter, less permanent visits with the crippling sorrow that had overtaken the rest of his family. He was generally level-headed about life, and tried to be an optimist. But no matter what he did, he never slept more than a few hours. The little sleep he got was nightmare-ridden, and he often lay awake waiting for the murderer that killed his guild to come after him as well._

 ** _xXXx_**

 _"Where are we going to go, Papa?"_

 _"I don't know, Princess."_

 _It was getting dark out, and they hadn't found anywhere that would offer them shelter for the night._

 _"We might have to sleep in the park tonight..." He said, looking up at the sky. The sun was almost under the horizon, and he could see the sharp tips of stars as they poked through the fabric of the evening sky._

 _The family walked to one last hotel, asking if they would let them stay for the night. They were turned away again, but they weren't shocked._

 _Their legs seemed to be filled with lead as they made their way to the nearest park and settled under a large tree. It took hours for them to all finally fall asleep._

 _Hibiki, however, was awake all night. One part because of the withdrawal he could already feel setting in, and two parts because of bone-wracking guilt._

What have I done to my family?

 _ **xXXx** _

_It was weeks later that Ansel rushed to the park where he left everybody that morning, bursting with news._

 _"I've found somewhere we can stay!"_

 _The rest of the Burrs perked up. They had been staying in numerous parks, searching for some place that they would be welcomed._

 _"Where is it?!" Lily asked, excitement flooding her voice. They had been homeless for far too long now._

 _"It's a guild, actually. I met one of their members on the street, and we got to talking, and well... he says that his guild would be happy to have us there with them."_

 _There was a range of noises from agreement to hesitancy. Lily thought it was a great idea; she was trying to start her life over, what better place to do it than surrounded by new people?_

 _Hiyori disagreed. "Should we really join a new guild so soon?" She asked, voicing the inner thoughts of everybody else._

 _Hana, although the same thought had flickered through her mind, reassured her mother that it was the best thing to do. "We need to move on, Mom. We can't do that trapped under trees and on benches. I say we join."_

 _Ansel waited to make sure that there was no more objections from his family, and was pleased that there was none. At least, not out loud._

 _"Great! Should we head over, then?"_

 _Hana and Lily got to their feet, and Hiyori joined them, wary as she was. They all turned to Hibiki, realizing that he was still sitting down._

 _"Hibiki? Come on." Lily said._

 _He shook his head quickly, to clear the thoughts from it, and looked at his wife with a smile that seemed to practiced to be real._

 _"I've just got to get some water. I'll head down to the stream and refill the canteens while I'm at it."_

 _"That's a great idea! I think I'll join you." Ansel said._

 _"Oh, no. You should stay here and help the ladies pack. I'll be back soon, okay?"_

 _Ansel was hesitant to let Hibiki go off on his own, but he knew that with this man, there was no changing his mind. "Okay... Just to the stream and back, alright?" He clarified._

 _"Yeah. See you guys soon!" He kissed Lily goodbye and headed into the forest attached to the park, where he hoped there was a stream. He made sure to take the canteens with him, as well as the map of the park and a pencil so he could track his path in case he got lost._

 _When he was about halfway through the forest, he came across a fence that had several signs posted on it, reading "Do not pass. Beyond this point is no longer park property."_

 _But Hibiki could see the river that he needed right across the fence, so he disregarded the warnings and climbed the chain-links anyway._

 _ **xXXx**_

 _Hana, Ansel, Hiyori, and Lily had finished packing about a half hour ago and were getting severely worried about Hibiki. He had yet to come back to the campsite, and there was no sign of him._

 _They approached an elderly couple that had just come out of the forest path, asking if they had seen anybody that matched Hibiki's description. When they said they hadn't seen anybody else on the trail, the Burrs began to panic. They raced into the forest, baggage forgotten._

 _It took them about ten minutes to come across a fence, where they could see a river across the way. They searched the bank for Hibiki, but couldn't find him._

 _It was Hana, however, that saw the pile of canteens lying next to the riverbank._

 _"Guys?" She raised a hand to point, and she could feel her bones fill with dread. "Look."_

 _One glance was all it took to send the family over the short iron wall, to the canteens. Lily lifted one of them up. It was full, and under it was a note, scribbled on the back of a map. It said:_

My dear family. I hope this letter finds you, and that it is untarnished when it does. I need to explain myself. I would've told you sooner, but I could never find a good time to do so. Let me first say, I'm sorry. I was the reason we were kicked out of the home you all worked so hard to obtain. It was because of me that we were homeless for so long, and I can never quite forgive myself for that. That's not the only reason for my actions today. I believe my future was set in stone the moment I saw my sister's dead body that day so many months ago. I could not save her. I couldn't save any of them. And I have hated myself for it every day.

My drinking problem. You must've thought it was because I was trying to chase away the memories? Really, I was trying to lose myself. I couldn't stand living in this worthless body any longer. I needed to separate my thoughts from my consciousness, and getting hopelessly drunk was the only way I knew how. I was hoping that one day I wouldn't wake up. Maybe that would've been less painful for you guys. I put myself through the horrible pain of hangovers every day because the memories brought on worst headaches than the drinking ever would. So in the end, I guess I _was_ trying to push away memories.

Please don't misunderstand me. I love all of you with all my heart, and I stuck around long enough to make sure you were going to be okay, but I need to join my brothers and sisters now. There's nothing else for me here.

We're all fighting out battles with pain. But sometimes the pain wins, and this was one of those times.

Goodbye, my dearest family. I love you.

-Hibiki

 _Lily had to read it to herself several times for it to make sense, and when it did she could feel herself falling into the pit of despair she thought she had climbed out of. The pain she was feeling this time was nothing like the pain of the previous event. This was the death of several friends compared to the death of a single loved one, but it somehow seemed to hurt so much more._

 _Ansel took the letter from his sister and read it out loud, his voice breaking several times. After he was silent, the whole forest, no, the whole_ world _, seemed to halt in its rotation. The only sound was Lily's quiet sobs, which were eventually joined by sirens._

 _The family was aware of the police finding them and leading them away, but they didn't feel it._

 _It was nearly midnight when they were identified as Hibiki's family and informed of what had happened. They already knew, but hearing it from an officer made it real._

 _"We got a call today from an elderly man, saying that he found a body floating in the river we found you by, downstream a bit. Scans of the body confirmed it to be Hibiki Abe. At first, we thought he fell in and drowned because of the current, but after reading the note we think he must've drowned himself. We offer you our deepest condolences."_

 _The night was swallowed in sorrow, and the family found themselves crying in the police station about yet another lost family member._

 ** _xXXx_**

 _After about a week of signing papers at the police station, crying, and being on the news, the Burrs were finally asked if they had anywhere to stay._

 _Ansel answered, deciding that now would be the best time to take his family (minus one) to the guild he had found. He told the police the name of the guild, and they dropped his family at it's door._

 _They joined the guild that night and fell asleep in real rooms, given to them as a complimentary accommodation. Everybody in the guild was issued one room per family. The Burr's got two rooms, one for Ansel, Hana, and Hiyori, and the other for Lily._

 _The guild seemed to know not to disturb the new family. Everybody knew that they were the ones from the suicide case._

 _Several days later, after the Burrs had settled in and unpacked their belongings, they finally made their way down to the main guild hall, located down the street a little ways from the dorms. They had tried to get Lily to go with them, but they couldn't get her out of bed. They left her in her room after making her breakfast, and now they were making their way to the guild._

 _At the guild hall, they were met with yet another surprise. This time, it was a pleasant one._

 _"LEVI!?" Ansel called out. The man had several scars on his face and arms now, and his hair was longer, but he was without a doubt the same guild master they had known from before._

 _Relief flooded through them as they embraced the man from their old guild. Questions poured out of their mouths before they could even think them through._

 _"How are you here?"_

 _"We saw everybody else and assumed the worst!"_

 _"What happened to the guild? Were you there?"_

 _"Did anybody else make it out?"_

 _"How did you end up here?"_

 _Levi laughed good-naturedly. "Easy, give yourselves time to breathe." He chuckled again and began answering their questions. "I got here about a month ago, after the guild was-" He stopped himself before he could say anything else, and looked at Hana. "I won't say what happened in front of the little one."_

 _"Hey! I'm not little!" She protested._

 _"Hana, you're only eleven. I'll listen to what Levi tells me, and if it's fit for you to hear, I'll tell you." Ansel said._

 _Hana made a defiant grunt of agreement, and Levi carried on._

 _"I'm not the only one who made it out alive. There were several others, including myself and Reiki-"_

 _"Reiki made it out?!" Hana almost screeched. She was already looking around the room for her green-haired friend, her hopes soaring higher as the seconds went by._

 _"Yes, he made it out... but we split ways before I came here."_

 _Hana's hopes crashed down. "What?" She asked._

 _"He said that he couldn't look at me with out feeling awful about what had happened. Said he was leaving, and told me not to follow him. He may still be a boy in your eyes, but he has grown enough to make it on his own. He sends he letters sometimes, but not often."_

 _"Oh." Hana said. She was disappointed, to say the least. Levi took in her expression and handed her a few bills. He pointed to the counter against the far wall and told her to buy whatever she liked. Hana knew why she was being gotten rid of. Levi was about to tell her father what had happened to Tiger Claw._

 _She went to the counter as she was told and ordered a milkshake with whipped cream._

 _As she drank it, the conversation of her parents and Levi shifted to a darker note, filled with rumors of a blue-haired murderer and revenge for their guild..._

 _ **Eight months after "The Incident"...**_

 _Hana sat in the Ice Phoenix cafe, alone and isolated. Her father had been on jobs for what seemed like every day for the past four and a half months, her mother was off traveling somewhere, and her Aunt Lily was with some guy that she probably met yesterday. After her uncle Hibiki had drowned himself months ago, Lily gave up trying to feel okay again and found that the easiest way to fight off her sorrow was through the other men in the guild._

 _Lily's former husband had become drunk through alcohol, and she became drunk through the attention she received at the bat of an eyelash._

 _The sounds of the new guild partying floated up through the floor. It didn't matter to Hana how many times her dad called this place home, it would always feel cold and uninviting to her. The sounds of a drunken "Happy Birthday" song didn't help to brighten her mood; it only brought back memories of a happier birthday party, ages ago..._

I wish we could go back to Ti- _She cut her thoughts off right there. She couldn't afford to cry again. Not when somebody could walk in at any moment and see it._ I just have to wait out the rest of the day. Once I get home... _Despite how much Hana wanted to deny it, she knew she would be crying into her pillow tonight. Her dad used to come in and comfort her for the first few weeks, before the new guild transformed him into a cold shell of a man. Nowadays, if he saw her eyes red and puffy, he told her to grow up. "You can't fix the past, so stop crying about it." But she knew better._

 _There simply were not enough tears in eight months to wash away the memories of a destroyed home and lost friends. She couldn't help but wonder, how long will be enough? But deep down, she knew that even if she cried for years and years without stopping, the pain would never dull. Her whole life had been destroyed. How else was she supposed to react?_

 _She had never been told what exactly had happened that day, but she knew Reiki's dad had told her father. She tried asking, but she just shook his head and said: "You're too young."_

 _Her mom was no help either. She was so caught up in trying to chase away any memories of her past life that she often forgot where she was. She traveled around the world with her husband's money from jobs, and she bought herself fancy jewelry at every place she went, as if she needed something to remind her that she did something with her life now that everybody else's from before was over. Hana had her own things from when her mother took her traveling, which was not often._

 _Although her dad gave her anything and everything she asked for and more, the material objects he brought home for her could never satisfy the ache of homesickness that constantly nagged at her heart._

 _She was wallowing in her own pain and self-pity when there was a particularly loud door slam in the guild hall. She sat in silence for a while longer, wondering if the sound meant what she knew it meant._

 _Her suspicions were confirmed when a holler was thrown up the stairs._

 _"HANA! Yer dad's back!"_

 _She would be lying if she said she wasn't somewhat happy to see him. After all, he was still her father. But he was just so distant. She couldn't talk to him like she used to anymore. Interacting with him had become more of a going-through-the-motions kind of thing._

 _Slowly, she raised herself from her chair, only because she knew that if she didn't make her way down the stairs soon, someone would come to get her, and she didn't think she could handle having to reassure whoever it was that she was okay._

 _When she was about halfway down the stairs, she could hear what her guild mates were saying._

 _"You find anything out?" They asked._

 _"We did, actually. Some guy in a bar knew who we were looking for. He said that he's in a real guild now, but couldn't remember which one." Answered her father._

 _Today he wasn't returning from a guild mission- the ones you got paid for. He was returning from a three-week journey to find information on the man he held accountable for the murder of his old guild. "You can't fix the past, but you can fix the future." Was his reasoning for tracking this man down._

 _She didn't have to look to know that Reiki's father was with her father, just down the stairs. They went on these search missions together, and everybody knew why._

 _Hana used to hope that one of these times Levi would walk in with Reiki by his side. She had stopped hoping for anything that miraculous about three months back, when she brought it up to her father._

 _"He's not coming back, Hana. Let him go." Was his response._

 _"Why can't_ you _let go?" She fired back. "You spend all your time looking for clues that'll lead you doorstep of you so-called enemy, and you tell me I can't miss my friend?! How is that fair?"_

 _"It's fair, Hana, because finding him is the only way I can cope with this! He killed our family! Wouldn't you like to see him meet the same fate?"_

 _Hana had been shaking with rage by then. She couldn't believe the monster that her once-gentle father had become. "No, Papa. I wouldn't like to see him dead. Because there are people out there that care about him, and I don't want anybody to lose him and feel as helpless as I do. Why can't you see that, Papa?" She was crying now._

 _"Stop being such a child, Hana. Grow up. Some people deserve to suffer. I would think you were smart enough to understand at least that."_

 _To his back, she whispered her last argument: "Nobody deserves to suffer like I have, Papa. Not even you."_

 _They'd had several similar conversations through the months, and neither of them budged in their opinions. If anything, Ansel got more and more determined to find the man, if only to convince his daughter that he deserved to die._

 _Knowing that her father was one step closer to finding the man he planned to kill made her sick, and she knew she wouldn't be able to handle seeing him right now. Before anybody could sense her presence, she turned around and quietly ran back up the stairs. She went to the fire escape door in the corner of the cafe and followed the stairs to the back of the guild hall. From there, she ran home, tears in her eyes and an emptiness in her heart that would never be satisfied._

 **A year after "The Incident"...**

 _"Goodbye, Hana. I'll see you in a few months, alright?"_

 _"Please don't go, Papa. You should let the past-"_

 _"Hana. We're not having this conversation again. Do you understand?"_

 _Over the last four months, Ansel and Levi tracked the man they blamed for Tiger Claw's accident, and they finally knew where he was. Now they were going to find him and "end it, once and for all". They said the trip would take several months, and Ansel arranged for Hiyori to be sent to any exotic place of her choosing as an apology for his absence. That left Hana with Lily, who was never around anyway._

 _Hana just wanted her father to understand that she had already forgiven whoever was at fault for the accident. She just wanted him to look at her and see his Princess again, not some minor inconvenience that he could buy off with fake promises and half-hearted apologies._

 _But Levi had changed him. Ansel was now bent on revenge, convinced that it was the only solution. He claimed that it was a conclusion he came to on his own, but Hana knew that her father would never seek to hurt another human without having been seriously brainwashed prior to the decision._

 _And now her father was leaving. She knew that if he went through with this, he would never even have a chance of coming back from it. She would never be called Princess again, and her family would continue to lose itself in sorrow and loneliness._

 _And she knew with every fiber of her being that she couldn't let that happen. So she nodded her head when she was supposed to, and shook hands with Levi._

 _Her father seemed pleased that she was finally accepting his way of life, and hugged her. She was taken by surprise, and her arms were still in front of her when he squeezed her. She let herself enjoy the once-familiar gesture for a second before she moved._

 _Hana, seeing the opportunity, slid her hands into the pockets of his jacket and pulled a few dollars out, hiding them in her sleeve. Ansel thought her squirms were her trying to break free, so he let go and said his final goodbyes, walking out the door with Levi._

 _The duo didn't know that she was planning on leaving shortly after them._

 _ **xXXx**_

 _It had been almost an hour since her father and Levi left._

Now's the time. _She thought. Lily had just taken off with another guy, leaving Hana nothing but a backward glance to make sure she hadn't found some way to harm herself. Hana stood up, walking to the bathrooms, where there was a little window she was fairly confident she could climb out of._

 _Nobody paid her any attention as she made her way down the hall and into the small room. She flipped the lock so nobody could barge in, and began scaling the wall._

 _It was no good. There were no grips on the wall, and the window was too high for her to reach on her own. She considered turning around and walking out through the front door, but she knew she would be questioned if she did that. And the cafe door was out for the same reason; it was unusually full upstairs today._

 _She was about to give up when she saw the garbage can in the corner. It wasn't a flimsy plastic bin, it was one of the metal mesh ones that looked like a pencil cup. She knew it was sturdy, and a glance inside confirmed that it had just been emptied._

 _She smiled at her piece of good fortune and flipped the garbage bin upside down under the window. Climbing on top of it, she swung the glass open and climbed out, unsure of her footing._

 _She was also frightened when she saw the drop._

It's just because your head is higher than your feet. _She reminded herself._ You're only about two feet up... Just jump!

 _She dropped for a split second before her feet made contact with the ground, and her knees buckled under the force._

 _She quickly picked herself up from the street and dusted herself off. Then she ran to the train station to buy a ticket for the next train to Magnolia. She was following her father, but first, she had a stop to make, a reunion with an old friend..._

* * *

 **Present day...**

Hana concluded her story, and an awkward silence fell over the two.

"So, you were in the same guild as my dad?" Reiki finally asked.

Hana nodded. At some point during their talk, they had gotten up and headed outside to take a walk "away from listening ears".

"He said you wrote letters to each other. Didn't he say anything about us?"

"No. I wrote to him, but he never wrote back. I had no idea." His eyebrows had furrowed now, and she could tell he had something to ask.

"You might as well say it, Rei." She said to the ground.

"Say what?" He decided that playing dumb was the best approach right now.

"I can tell there's something bothering you. You've got your eyebrow thing going on." She said.

He sighed, giving up. "It's just... the card from Hiro...? Did you ever find out what he was going to tell you?"

Hana's thoughts froze, and memories of staring at the card one October night came back to her. She finally had decided to try rubbing over the blank paper with a pencil to see if he had finished his message and then erased it. She didn't think it would actually work, but sure enough, there were words carved into the paper, only revealed with a light coating of a pencil. She read them and erased her markings. She didn't want anyone to know what the message was; it was far too personal. So she lied.

"No. He didn't ever finish the sentence." Her voice shook a bit, and she cleared her throat to cover it up. Thankfully, Reiki was too focused on his own thoughts to notice.

"Oh." He was clearly disappointed, but Hana made a vow to herself that night to never tell anybody what the card said, so she didn't speak up.

"So you're following my dad and your dad, then?" He asked, changing the subject.

"Yeah." She replied, happy to have something to talk about.

"And I'm guessing you want me to help you find them?"

She smiled sheepishly at him, hoping she wouldn't have to explain herself.

One glance at her face and he knew he would be diving headfirst into this crazy rescue mission with Hana. He sighed and smiled a little himself. "Yeah, I'll help you. I haven't seen my old man in a while. I'll need to pack some stuff though. Let's turn around." They started walking back to the guild.

"Do you know where they're going?" He asked.

She nodded. "Fairy Tail."

* * *

 **A/N:** Holy COW this was a long chapter! (and it didn't help that I kept accidentally clicking on things from the side bar without saving, so like, two thousand words would be deleted and I'd have to rewrite them. ) (Yes, that actually happened more than once.) I considered splitting it into two chapters several times but decided that it was better like this. I hope you guys enjoyed reading this as much as I (kind of) enjoyed writing it :).

This chapter was a lot darker than the other ones (duh), but it had to be. I had to stop writing a few times because I had to seriously ponder what my imagination has been through in order to come up with some of the scenes in this chapter (trust me though, it could've gotten a _lot_ worse. I deleted a lot of it to put into another chapter, and that got much more graphic).

This chapter also had none of the traditional FT characters, but again, it had to be like this. I promise you this information is important! (I didn't spend hours and days writing fluff! I hope...)

Another important note! School is starting up soon, so I won't be able to update as frequently anymore. Expect chapters maybe every other week? Maybe once a week, it I have time.

Anyway, please leave a review! Thank you for reading! :D

(And for those of you who are as obsessed with Hamilton as I am, yes. I did pull the last name "Burr" from "Aaron Burr". I have the soundtrack stuck in my head as I type.) (*music note* There's a million things I haven't done! Just you wa-ait! *music note again* We can all go stay with my father! There's a lake I knowwww, You and I can goooo when the night get's daaarrrrrrkkkkk! *music note again*) (Sorry that I'm so weird. But if you got that reference, thank you.) (Eliza is my fav. Who's yours?)

-K


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** Okay, just a quick word here! Sorry this took me so long to publish! Thank you for sticking with the story! :)

Disclaimer: I own no part of Fairy Tail

* * *

Where am I?

 _This was Natsu's first thought. The second was a stream of colorful choice words as the temperature dropped somewhere below freezing._

Usually, I'm too warm for my own good. How am I so cold?

 _The only thing he could make out was the fog surrounding him. Before he had a chance to focus on much else, his eyes flicked to the other side of the fog-filled space, having sensed movement. Sure enough, there was a cloaked man slowly walking into Natsu's field of vision._

 _Natsu was almost positive that he knew who he was working with, even before he removed his hood. He could feel his temper rising as he remembered what had happened the last time he met with this mysterious figure._

 _But when the figure removed his hood, it wasn't the scarred man Natsu had originally assumed it to be, but his accomplice. The blond guy with teal eyes._

 _Discovering that this man was not the one responsible for his daughter's predicament defused his anger only slightly._

 _"What are you doing here?" He growled. His voice carried across the wide expanse of empty space, echoing off the invisible walls and bouncing back to him._

 _The man smiled. "You speak as if you know where you are. Look around. Does this place look familiar?"_

 _Natsu almost complained, but he bit his tongue. He shifted his gaze away from the man, and looked around again, not expecting to find anything but the fog he had seen before._

 _He was shocked to find that he was in a meadow this time. He was even more surprised at how much it resembled the very meadow he had grown up in, with Igneel._

 _"Where am I?! Where did you take me?!" Natsu yelled, flicking his burning gaze back at the b_ _lond man, who only laughed._

 _"Recognise it now?" He asked._

 _With the last syllable, Natsu's heart dropped into his stomach, and his vision went black. His senses were overwhelmed with crushing sorrow, and he could feel himself drop to his knees. Soon, horrible abandonment joined Natsu's emotions. Only one coherent thought could form in his brain, and it was only a name, repeated again and again._

Igneel.

 _Just when he thought he would break from the overwhelming sadness, it all melted away._

 _But the peace didn't last long._

 _Almost as fast as it went away, the misery came back, different this time, yet all the same. This time, it wasn't the sadness of losing a father, but a friend. he could almost feel the soft ground beneath him, dampened by the rain from the evening. He reached his arm out, knowing that his fingers wouldn't brush against the grave of his comrade, but he couldn't stop it any more than he could stop the sadness._

I should have gone with you... Lisanna.

 _Again, the grief started, this time magnified several times over. It was close to the worst emotional pain he had ever been in. In his mind, he was staring down at Lucy as she took her last breath and died in his arms. He knew the real Lucy was still alive, but he could still feel his chest constrict as he watched the woman he loved die._

I love you, Luce. Please don't go...

 _He was expecting the change in emotions this time, but h didn't welcome it. The underlying pain of heartache stayed the same, but he felt guilty and helpless now. It took him only seconds to identify the occasion when he felt like this; trapped by his own mistakes._

My little girl... Might never wake up?

 _Natsu's vision began returning to him little by little, but the aftermath of the freshly opened wounds was still affecting him. By the time he could comprehend his surroundings again, he knew he was curled in a ball on the floor, surrounded by fog. The meadow of his childhood was gone; washed away in the sea of pain he had been drowning in just seconds earlier_

 _Despite his out-of-it state of mind, his ears picked up the laughter of a villain who knew he'd won, soon followed by cruel words._

 _"I thought I'd give you a taste of what you're going to get if you even_ try _to defend your blue-haired comrade. Let him go, and you won't lose anybody else... I promise. You won't cause any trouble for me, will you?"_

 _Natsu felt his temper light up inside him, but it was nothing compared to the other emotions that were battling within him. He wanted to get up and make sure that his enemy knew he'd pay for what he did, but he couldn't move, much less open his mouth and form sentences._

 _"That's what I thought, Flaim Brain." The voice chuckled. "See you on the other side, then... Bye now..."_

* * *

Natsu woke up in a cold sweat, not quite understanding what was wrong with him, but knowing it must've been awful to tear him out of his sleep like that. He lay in his bed, pondering what could've happened, when it all came back in a rush.

The memory stole his breath, and he could barely keep from screaming. His hands grabbed the sheets and twisted them around his knuckles.

He didn't realize he was panting, but Lucy did. She woke up and turned to her husband, who was clenching his eyes shut and gripping the sheets like they were a lifeline.

"Natsu?" She asked, knowing he wasn't asleep.

It took a second for her question to register in his mind, and when it did, he slowly opened his eyes, although his grip on the mattress never loosened and he didn't look at her.

Lucy reached a hand over to Natsu's bare chest, laying her palm over his racing heart. "What's wrong?" She asked him.

He shut his eyes tight again and shook his head quickly.

"Don't want to talk about it, huh?" Lucy chuckled. She was used to Natsu doing this when he had a bad dream. Instead of trying to pry a story from him, she slid her other arm under his back and clasped her hands together so that she was hugging him, resting her head on his sturdy chest. "It was just a dream, Natsu. Try to go back to sleep, okay? It's still the middle of the night." She said, already drifting back to sleep herself.

Natsu had relaxed soon after Lucy's arms settled around his waist. He found himself cradling her head with one of his hands, but decided that it wasn't good enough. He had just relived the pain of losing her for, after all. He shifted so that he was on his side and placed one of his arms on the nape of her neck and the other at the small of her back, holding her to him.

"Yeah...Just a dream." He agreed.

He was halfway asleep when Lucy snuggled closer to him, enjoying the embrace as well as his body temperature. Lucy fell asleep rather quickly, but Natsu was up for the rest of the night thinking about how they were possibly going to be able to fight, if his dream had been any kind of warning of what was to come.

* * *

Natsu could feel his unease grow as he walked with Lucy and Happy to the guild. Porlyusica was with Nashi at his house, and they had just dropped Stella off at Mira's. The sleep-shattering nightmare had stolen most of Natsu's night, and on top of being stressed out, he was tired now too.

His hand was killing him, pulsing shooting pain from his pinkie, and he couldn't help but wonder how he would fight if he needed to.

He could feel Lucy's nerves radiating off of her as well as she clutched his hand. They'd been through a lot in the past few hours alone; Their daughter was in a coma-like state with no promises of ever waking up, and their other daughter was being stowed away so that they could go fight the people that had attacked their guild hall, and who, for some reason, seemed to hold a grudge against Jellal.

Once the three entered the guild through the hole that used to be the door, they could see the rest of their guildmates sitting quietly, waiting.

It didn't take a genius to know what they were waiting for. The rebels that attacked yesterday left a note saying they would be back, and the guild knew better than to doubt that they would be.

Natsu and Lucy sat down across from Gajeel and Lily in a booth, while Happy went over to Carla, keeping up his futile hope of impressing her.

The iron dragon slayer had his hands folded and was resting his forehead on them. Lily was staring at Gajeel with a look of deep concern, and it troubled Natsu seeing them like that. Not that he'd ever admit it.

"What's got you so down in the dumps, Gajeel? You're usually so fired up when we're going to fight." Natsu pointed out. He was going for a joking, good-natured tone, but it came out more accusatory than he was aiming for.

Gajeel raised his head to glare at Natsu. "My family is in the middle of the forest an' I'm not allowed to stay and protect them." He growled.

Understanding washed over Natsu, followed by a wave of sympathy. He lowered his voice and spoke again. "I feel you, man. I wish I could be there for them too. But we need to be _here_. For Fairy Tail. I'm sure Levy and the baby are safe."

Gajeel grunted and lowered his forehead onto his hands again, thoughts of his wife returning to fill his muddled brain.

Natsu sat in silence for another minute or so before he evidently couldn't take it anymore. "What are we waiting for, exactly?" He called out, hoping someone would answer.

It was Carla who responded. "We have to wait for Jellal and Erza to get here so we can plan the battle strategy. We were waiting for you two as well, but you're here now." By the end of the sentence, she could already feel her patience thinning.

"Why can't we just go attack those two jerks who attacked our guild? Why wait for them to come to us?" He asked, flames growing at the tips of his fingers.

"Because we don't know where they are." Lily cut in, answering for the white Exceed, who was clearly getting frustrated by Natsu's inability to think things through.

Before Natsu could open his mouth again, Erza walked into the guild, followed by Jellal.

"We're here." Erza said, stating the obvious.

"Excellent!" Crowed Makarov. "Let's begin, then!"

The guild was puzzled at Makarov's seemingly optimistic attitude, but they didn't say anything about it. Instead, they stood in a circle, much like they had done last night, and began talking strategy.

"What should we do?" Carla somehow managed to sound like they'd already lost the fight. "I mean, we don't even know what kind of magic they use! They have an advantage!"

Lily looked at his companion and shrugged. "Think again, Miss Carla. We didn't use our magic last night either. They don't know anything about us that we don't-"

"But they knew who Jellal was. What if they know everyone else is, too?" Happy asked.

"No, they wouldn't know who we were. Didn't you see them? They didn't go after Jellal until we all looked at him, which obviously gave away who he was. They wouldn't have told us to surrender him if they knew what he looked like." Erza said.

"I guess so..." Carla admitted.

"Well, that's nice and all, but how're we gonna fight them?" Natsu asked.

"Of course that's all you want to know, Natsu." Happy said with a roll of his eyes.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Natsu demanded. Happy just laughed into his hands, clearly about to make some sort of snide comment but before he could, Ezra cleared her throat rather loudly, commanding the attention of her guildmates. After shooting a glare at Natsu and Happy, she started talking. "Well, to fight them off, I was thinking we could-"

Before she could finish her sentence, the guild hall shook, and a loud rumble of evil laughter surrounded them.

Alarmed, the guild members looked around, hoping to pinpoint exactly where the laughter was coming from. Soon enough, they realized they were all looking different directions, and gave up trying to pinpoint a location.

Once they realized this, the laughter stopped, and the same two cloaked figures from the day before were standing in the same place; right under the wrecked arch that had once framed the guild's doors.

Everything stood still for a fraction of a second, both parties analyzing the other before the Fairy Tail guild flew into a flurry of motion and battle cries.

Gajeel, having pushed aside thoughts of his wife and child being harmed, was the first one to move into action. Jumping over the table, he flew at the scarred man, aiming for his face. But before his fist could make contact with the man's jaw, there was a puff of smoke, and he disappeared.

Gajeel stood still, baffled, watching as the rest if his guild flew into action all around him. _How did he do that?_

Natsu's screaming jolted Gajeel back to the guild. He could tell that his friend's screams were not of anger, but of pain. Natsu sat on the floor, several feet away from the iron dragon slayer, grinding his teeth and cradling his arm. There was a man behind him, who Gajeel assumed to be the accomplice of the scarred man he had tried to punch earlier.

Gajeel tried to go over to his friend, but only got about halfway there before the man behind Natsu knocked him out with nothing more than a glance.

It was then that the full power of the two men hit him. He thought maybe they were up against two people that were relatively new to magic, but he could see now that he was wrong.

 _What did we get ourselves into?_ He thought. Gajeel could feel himself blacking out, exactly as Natsu had just seconds earlier. The last thing his ears registered as he fell into darkness was a gruff voice asking where Jellal was, and the screaming of the rest of the guild as they tried to fight off the intruders.

* * *

 **A/N:** Alright! Another one down! Sorry it took so long! School and all that, you know? ;)

Anyway, thank you for reading! The last chapter was super long, and I'm just gonna say that the rest of them likely will be about 1,000 to 5,00 words long. I just need to give you guys something long to hold you over until now. Also, not that I've more or less adjusted to the summer-to-school transition, I'll try to update weekly, but no promises! Quality comes first!

That being said, I'm already working on chapter eight, so it'll hopefully be out soon!

Thank you again to all the readers, reviewers, followers, likes, and all that stuff. You guys are what keep me from quitting when I get massive writer's block! Thank you!

-K


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer **:** I own no part of Fairy Tail

* * *

"Maybe... This wasn't such a good idea." Hana stared down at her hands as she confessed her thoughts to her companion, Reiki. They were currently riding a train to Magnolia, and she was starting to seriously doubt that they should continue their journey. "I mean, Papa might yell at me, and what if we get lost? I don't think-"

"Hana." Reiki cut her off, gently interrupting her. "Of course this was a bad idea. We could get too cold or too hungry or run out of money. Really, an endless number of things could go wrong. But we're already so close, and it's not like we're the only ones making bad decisions here." He ended his sentence with a smug look directed at the girl.

"That wasn't exactly helpful. And what do you mean, we aren't the only ones?"

"I _mean_ , sometimes good people have to do bad things to help bad people do good things. You know?"

Hana blinked a few times, letting that sink in before she burst out laughing.

"Hey!" Reiki protested, getting slightly red in the face. "That was supposed to be all deep and stuff. You weren't supposed to laugh at it!"

Hana calmed herself down just enough to squeeze out a sentence. "I know, but you just sounded so _old,_ Reiki!" And she started laughing again.

"Hmph." The green-haired teen crossed his arms against his chest, trying to look offended. But Hana's laughter made it hard to stay angry with her. Since she had shown up at his guild, she had been tense, not really laughing or smiling much. This was the first time in a long time that he'd heard her sound so happy. Despite his efforts to stay mad, he soon found himself laughing along with Hana. "Yeah, I guess that was really old man-ish advice. Sorry about that." he said, rather sheepishly.

"Don't worry about it. You're right, after all." Hana admitted.

Reiki scoffed. "Of course I was right. I'm always right!" His remark sent the pair into another uncontrollable fit of laughter, one that was barely contained once they realized they were disturbing the other passengers on the train.

Reiki held his hand out for a fist bump, and Hana returned the gesture. "Let's go save our dads, then." They agreed, bumping fists as the train pulled into a stop. They were still several hours from Magnolia, but now that they had given each other the courage to continue, they knew it would feel like no time at all.

* * *

"...Up! Gajeel! Wake up!"

"What happened?" He asked, rubbing his head and prying his eyes open. The iron dragon slayer could feel a massive headache starting up, which was not helping him concentrate on trying to remember why he had blacked out.

"We don't know what happened. Lucy ran over and told us everyone was passing out, and-"

"I'm not the only one who blacked out?!" Gajeel looked around as he asked. He was still in the Fairy Tail guild hall, which had been wrecked even more than it had been at the beginning of the day, and all around him were his fallen companions.

"Yeah. Lisanna and I were watching the kids at Mira's, just like we had planned, when there was a frantic knock on the door. When we answered, it was Lucy, all out of breath and telling us that they were attacked and everyone was dropping like flies. So I came over to try to find you, and the Guild hall was abandoned, and you were all on the floor."

Gajeel processed the information for a while before panic and anger set in. "Why did they send you?! What if you'd been hurt?!" he yelled.

Levy just giggled. "I came because I missed you, silly. I haven't had to be away from you for more than a few hours since we found out about the baby."

Although he was mad that Levy had been so foolish, he couldn't pretend his heart hadn't warmed up after hearing Levy's reason for being reckless.

Instead of yelling at her more, he stood up and started walking over to Natsu. Levy followed him, holding her hands out in case he fell.

"Oi! Fire Breath! Wake up! _Oi_!"

"Gajeel, don't kick him!" Levy protested. Gajeel had, indeed, landed a swift blow to the salamander's stomach, to which he had no reaction.

"Tell him to wake up, then!" Gajeel said, matching his wife in tone.

Before their dispute could escalate, there was a grunt from the floor. "Guys...? Where am I?"

"Natsu! You're awake!" Levy said, bad mood evidently forgotten.

"Yeah, but... why does my head hurt so bad? And why's everyone asleep?" He added, taking his first glance around the guild hall.

Levy launched into the same explanation she had given Gajeel seconds earlier, and he wandered off, not caring to hear the tale a second time. Instead, he started looking around for Lily. The Exceed hadn't been next to him when he woke up, and he wanted to know where the cat had ended up.

The iron dragon slayer was scanning faces, going through a mental checklist of who was present.

 _Juvia... Gray... Master... Evergreen... Elfman... Laxus... Jet... Droy... Wakaba... Cana... Wendy... Happy... Carla... Erza... Jellal? Why wouldn't Jellal be right by Erza?_

And then it dawned on him.

"Guys?" Levy and Natsu were still deep in conversation, and obviously hadn't heard him. "Guys?!" He said, louder this time

Levy turned to Gajeel, irritation all over his face. "Gajeel, I was in the middle of talking to Natsu. You shouldn't-"

"Where's Jellal?" He asked.

"You mean... He's not over there?" Natsu asked.

"No. I've been looking for Lily and I just realized he wasn't by Erza."

"Wait... You noticed Jellal was gone... because Lily wasn't by Erza? That makes no sense!" Natsu said, baffled by his friend's logic.

Gajeel only had to shoot a look at Jevy for her to know exactly what he was thinking.

"No, Natsu. _Jellal_ wasn't by Erza. Lily had nothing to do with it." She explained, trying to stifle her laughter.

"Oh. Well, you could've said that!" Natsu said, now frustrated with Gajeel.

"I did." He growled.

Levy cleared her throat, trying to all the attention away from the brewing fight. "Well, where exactly _is_ Jellal then?"

* * *

"You mean, he's gone?" The guild asked.

After Gajeel, Levy, and Natsu hadn't seen Jellal by Erza, they searched the rest of the guild, waking people up as they went. Once they had scoured the place from top to bottom twice with no sign of him, they declared him missing. Now, the guild was in varying states of confusion as they tried to think of where he could've been.

"He wouldn't have run away, would he?" Levy suggested, rather hesitantly. Erza, to the shock of no one, shot that idea down.

"Well, where is he then?!" Levy yelled, which shocked her guildmates. Levy was generally calm and level-headed, but the weight of the situation was getting to him.

"Well, if you think about it, he's likely-" Gajeel started, but was interrupted by Erza.

"I don't know where he is!" She yelled, ignoring Gajeel.

"I think I know where-" Gajeel tried again, slightly louder this time.

"Well, maybe you should figure it out, instead of just shooting down the other ideas!"

"Stop fighting!" Master Makarov roared. After a few suspended seconds of silence, he continued in a much calmer tone. "Levy, I know we're in an especially stressful situation, being under attack with a guildmate missing, but yelling can't be good for the baby, can it? And Erza, I know you're close to panicking. After all, your husband is missing. But we'll find him, so just calm down, both of you."

Both the girls took deep breaths and apologized to each other.

"So... nobody has any idea where Jellal could be?" Natsu asked.

"Well, if you would _listen_ to me, I think I know where he is!" Gajeel said.

"Well, why didn't you say so earlier, Gajeel?" Levy and Erza asked at the same time.

"I was trying, but you two were having some sort of fit and-"

"JUST TELL US WHERE HE IS!" They yelled.

Gajeel winced at the volume fo the two girls' voices. "Okay, okay." He started. "If you think about it, we're under attack, right?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure we noticed that, genius." Cana remarked. She got a dirty look from Erza, who was eager to learn the whereabouts of her husband.

"And we were all knocked out for who-knows-how-long, right?"

"Actually, based on when Lucy got to Mira's to warn us, I'd say you were only out for about..." Levy let the sentence die as she realized it had been another rhetorical question.

"The point is, when we woke up, Jellal was gone. So he must've left- or been taken- when we were all asleep. Since we've already ruled out the possibility of him ditching us, the only other option is..." His sentence dwindled off as he decided to let everyone figure it out for themselves. It didn't take very long for them to piece it together, but Erza was the first one to say it out loud.

"Then he must've been taken by the people that attacked our guild."

* * *

Jellal cracked his eyes open, not understanding where he was or what he was doing there. Surely this was not Fairy Tail?

The blue-haired mage knew he was somewhere potentially dangerous, but he couldn't remember anything that had happened prior to waking up in this strange place. Knowing he should be careful, he looked around.

From what he could tell, he was laying in a fairly comfortable bed, spare the fact that it was much too small for him. On one of the walls, there was a bookshelf that was overfilled with books that Jellal couldn't read from his spot on the mattress. There was also a small window on three of the walls, and a door on the remaining one. He got up and tried to twist the nob, but found that it was locked from the outside.

 _Guess I'm trapped, then._

Instead of pounding on the door for someone to let him out, he made his way to the bookshelf. On it, there was an assortment of fairy tales about dragons and wizards, a long series of the adventures of a ninja and a knight, and a single, tattered book about spells and magic. To his surprise, Jellal recognized most of the books. He had read them before, when he was a small boy.

 _I haven't seen these since I was about... maybe nine or ten?_ He thought fondly.

Just as he was about to remove a book from the shelf, the door creaked open, commanding his attention. In the doorway, there was a green-haired man, who Jellal identified as one of the men that had attacked Fairy Tail.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" He asked, without the slightest bit of interest. There was clearly something else he wanted to know, and Jellal demanded to know what he was really asking.

"Ahh, so you're a quick one." The man said, but left it at that. At this point, he was standing next to Jellal at the bookshelf, fondly fingering through the pages of a fairy tale.

"This one was his favorite." He said, showing Jellal the book he was holding.

Jellal had recognized that the man wasn't going to reveal what he really wanted, so he played along. "It was _who_ 's favorite?"

"My son's."

"Oh. I didn't realize you had a son." Jellal said, genuinely surprised. The scarred man before him didn't exactly seem like the fathering type.

"Yes. I had two, actually."

"... _Had_ two? What happened?"

The man had the same pleasant look on his face that he'd had the whole conversation, but now he let out a dark chuckle. "You ask as if you don't know."

"I really don't." Jellal said, not understanding what had happened or what he had to do with it. he had never seen this man, so how could he know what had happened to his children?

Finally, the man's tolerant face dropped as he put the book back on the shelf, he turned to Jellal with pure hatred in his eyes and spoke a single sentence.

"You killed him."

* * *

 **A/N:** Sorry to end there! It's kinda late though, and I'm tired and kinda sick, but hey, two chapters in two days! And I said to expect one every other week! *pats self on back*

Anyway, please review and all that. I'm too tired to even try to write a halfway decent Author's Note, so goodnight for today! Please read, Bye!

-K


	9. Chapter 9

In the time it took for Jellal to process the man's words, he had already left the room, slamming and locking the door behind him.

 _I… killed his son? No… there's no way._

His thoughts went to his own son, Simon. Jellal loved his children more than anything in the world, and he couldn't think up a world where he would intentionally harm someone so innocent and small, much less _kill_ a child.

 _There's absolutely no way that I could've done that. I haven't even seen that man before now. How could I have done anything to his family?_

Jellal's gaze was still on the entrance to the room, although his mind was elsewhere. However, when the door creaked open, Jellal snapped back to reality.

In the doorway stood a blond man with teal eyes.

"Hello, Jellal." He said.

Jellal was still too shocked to respond.

"I see you've met Levi, then." The man said, with a note of humor. "Don't mind him. He says things he doesn't always mean. He certainly loves overdramatizing things. What is it, that he said to you? You seem… ah, what's the word?" The blond man was just rambling at this point, Jellal could tell.

"Oh, how rude of me. I'm Ansel. As I already know your name, I won't expect an introduction from you. But I am curious. What _did_ my friend say to you?" Ansel asked this question with a chilling edge of pleasantness, as if he thought Jellal was incapable of understanding what he could've meant by the sentence. By now, he had also settled on the bed, making it clear that he wasn't leaving anytime soon.

After a few false starts, Jellal was finally able to form a logical sentence.

"He said that I… I asked about his son, and he said I… that I…" The look on the blue-haired man was one of complex sorrow and confusion. "He must have the wrong person… I would never-"

"'Never' is a strong word, wouldn't you agree?" Ansel asked, still perched on the mattress. But now his face was twisted in hatred, an exact replica of the expression from Levi minutes earlier. "You'd be surprised. Not only at the evil that _others_ are capable of. More so of the evil that you yourself can set in motion, with just a flick of your wrist."

"I'm not sure what you mean. You don't mean that I actually _did_ kill his son, do you? You don't think I would..."

This time, Ansel stood up before he spoke, crossing the room to join Jellal by the bookshelf, just as Levi had done.

"You were a member of a guild that went by the name 'Crime Sorciere', yes?" Jellal almost answered, but Ansel kept talking before he had a chance to. "Let me call to memory a mission you went on. In fact, it was the very last one you ever went on with that guild. A demon slaying mission, yes?"

* * *

 **One and a half years earlier...**

 _"Jellal! Watch out!" Meredy's scream came from across the wide expanse of land that they were currently on. They had gotten a demon hunting call earlier that week, but they hadn't been told how big the demon really was. They would've asked for help from other magic users, but they were pretty far out in the middle of nowhere. However, they knew there was a guild not too much farther away thanks to the caller._

 _Jellal jumped out of the way just in time, barely dodging the sharp talons of the monster's hand. "Keep running, guys!" He called out._

 _The plan was to lure the demon to the other guild by foot, because the demon was pretty determined to chase them, and the guild was on the edge of a cliff. Occasionally, someone would strike it with a semi-powerful spell to make sure it wasn't getting distracted. But they had forbidden Jellal from using any of his power until they were at the actual cliff. There, he would hit the demon with a powerful spell and hopefully knock it backward off the edge._

 _They were pretty close to the cliff face now, Jellal could see it, and he relayed this information to the girls, who were too preoccupied to notice their surroundings._

 _It took several more minutes of spell-casting and shouting for the guild of three to reach the ledge of Earth, and when they did, their entire mood shifted, became more determined. They positioned themselves so that it would be easier for them to defend themselves while attacking, and Jellal wasted no time in casting his spell._

 _Before the demon could fight back, seven brilliant beams of light shot from the sky, striking the demon in several places. One hit his eyes, two collided with his chest, another struck his foot, two more hit his neck, which caused a stream of thick blood to pour from the beast, and the last beam went straight through his wrist, causing his hand to fly off and land somewhere that Jellal couldn't see._

 _In the chaos, Meredy and Ultear cast spells of their own to aide Jellal, and when the dust settled they could see the last of the demon disappearing over the edge of the cliff._

 _The trio let the silence fill their ears for a few moments longer, but it was soon replaced with congratulatory whoops and howls of relieved laughter._

 _When they turned around, a middle-aged man with dark green hair and welcoming brown eyes was watching them, a smile decorating his face. "You must be the guild that was taking care of the demon-slaying, correct?" he asked._

 _"Yes," Jellal answered. "We're Crime Sorcier. Nice to meet you."_

 _"The pleasure's all mine." The man responded. "I'm the master of the guild down the way." He extended his hand, finger pointing towards a small collection of cottages in the distance. "Those are our resident homes. The actual guild hall is past them a little way. Would you like to come see it? You probably need somewhere to spend the night, and we'd be happy to have you." He offered._

 _"Thank you, sir. That's very kind of you." Meredy said, matching the man's smile._

 _"You can call me Levi." He smiled. "Come with me, I'll show you to my guild- Tiger Claw."_

* * *

"...I've met you." Jellal said. Now that the memory had been brought back up, he could remember everything that had happened that night; they went back to Levi's guild, and a large party had been thrown to celebrate. At one point, Jellal could remember children running around. Closer to the end of the night, there were two kids, maybe seven and fifteen, following Levi.

 _Those were his sons._ Jellal realized. _And now... one of them's dead? And he blames_ me _for it?_

Ansel was watching Jellal process all the information, and he could see the exact moment he remembered the Tiger Claw Guild.

"I... I don't understand." Jellal said. "I only met you guys when we were at that party. I couldn't have... killed... anybody."

"That's where you're wrong. You may have only been around that day, but the damage you set in motion stayed around for much longer. You may not've been personally present for the destruction of our guild, but it was you that caused it."

"I still don't understand."

This time, it was Levi who spoke. He had been standing in the doorway for a little while now, listening. "The demon that you slew? You didn't kill it. Not all of it, anyway."

* * *

 **One year earlier...**

 _"First shift! Let's go!" The guild master called. He was intent on getting Harvest started, oblivious to the events outside of the guild hall. A small crowd of teens and adults gathered in front of him, including his eldest son. They had all been assigned the first shift, and they needed to start the day early. "Everybody knows their assignments?"He clarified._

 _Everybody nodded their head in a "Sir, yes sir!" kind of way, which made the harsh-looking guild master smile. "Then let's get to work!" He shouted, and led the group out to the fields._

 _Unknown to them, a great evil was taking root somewhere off by the guild village. Nobody noticed it, and even if they somehow did, it was far too late to stop it._

 ** _xXXx_**

 _Hours later, somewhere around noontime, there was a shriek from the guild. It was followed by several more, and everybody working in the fields knew that something had to have been going horribly wrong at the guild in order for such an awful sound to reach their ears, almost a mile away._

 _There were shouts of confusion and worry going through all the workers on the ground, but Reiki was frozen where he was. From his vantage point high in the tree, he could see a long way off, and th_ e _guild hall was in his direct field of vision._

 _There was a shadow looming over the guild, swiping its paws through the building. Most of their guild hall was in ruins already, from what he could see. He continued to stare at his home as the monster overtook it. Horror was not a strong enough word for what he was feeling. He was witnessing the death of his family, his cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends, and he could not tear his eyes away. Not once did he call down to his partner about what he was seeing; part because he couldn't make his lips move, the other part because he didn't want anybody to know about the awful things that were happening._

 _The other tree climbers, who had the same view as Reiki, had other ideas. They were giving vivid descriptions of what their guild hall looked like, but only supplied vague answers when asked about the well-being of the people. There were small figures scattering, but there were not near enough. The number of people escaping was not even half of the people still trapped in the hall, the remainder likely being either crushed by rubble or clawed to death by the monster._

 _Reiki finally found his voice, but it was not a loud roar like his guildmate's. It was somewhere between a whisper and a choking sound. "They're dying." Once he got his lips moving, he couldn't stop them. He repeated himself several times, getting louder and louder until he was screaming his two-word sentence louder than anybody else in the fields._

 _He was already out of his tree by now, his limbs having moved on their own to carry him down the trunk. He found himself sprinting in the direction of his father, still screaming, although by now he wasn't sure how understandable he was._

 _When he got to the green-haired man that looked almost exactly like him, Reiki found him slowly guiding everybody in an evacuation, towards the city. "Get help! Take your children and go as far from here as you can!" He told them._

 _"Papa! Papa, they're dying! They're dying! I was in the tree and I saw them and-"_

 _"Slow down, son. You saw the people at the guild hall?"_

 _Reiki could only nod his head._

 _"They're dying, you say?" Another nod, followed by some colorful language from the guild master. When he took off in the direction of the guild, Reiki was baffled and began running after him._

 _"No, son! Go help the other's escape!"_

 _"No, Papa! They already know what to do! I need to save them! Mom would-"_ Oh God. Mom. Mom was in the guild hall. And Hiro _._ Oh, please no _! Reiki's bone-chilling revelation pushed him_ faster, _until he was side by side with his father, who had realized the same thing as his son at the same time._

 _They were at the guild in less than five minutes. Reiki was shocked by how bad it was. There were bodies everywhere, strewn around the rubble that was once their home, bloodied and mangled beyond recognition. There were some mages still alive, using all their magic power to fend off a dark shadow; the monster._

 _Reiki's father rushed into the fray, helping to weaken the monster by creating duplicates of himself to attack from more angles than just the front. It did little damage on the demon, but it did throw it off for a second._

 _Once the demon realized what was going on, it only got more violent. Its attacks were more fervent than before, a newfound passion behind every thrash of its claws or deafening roar. Reiki watched in silent horror, frozen with terror, unable to do anything but stand and watch more of his family die right before him._

 _When the demon's claws struck his father, he snapped out of it._

 _"Father!" He screamed, rushing into the battle at last. He didn't have the courage or the strength to do anything but grab his father and run away. The green-haired man's face and arms were torn apart, and Reiki knew they would scar._

 _The guild master was trying to yell at his son to turn back and save the others, but he was incoherent, trying to talk through the mess of blood that flooded into his mouth, and Reiki was in no state of mind to think about the well-being of anybody but himself and his father._

 _He ran until he was past the orchards, halfway to town. Images of his family in the guild hall flooded his mind._

 _Climbing the orchard trees with Hana and Hiro. The first Harvest that all three of them had the same shift. When his brother was born. Every birthday party his guild had thrown that he pretended to_ _hate much more than he actually did. The days that the guild would get together and play games all day because everybody was home and nobody had a job to go do. All of it, every single person from his memories, dead. He could never run around in the fields of Tiger Claw throwing a football with his dad and brother. Never bake a cake with his mom and the other cooks. Never open an abundance of gifts on his birthday or Christmas, the whole guild watching him tear the wrapping paper apart._

 _They're all dead. The thought pounded harder and harder in his mind until he had a massive headache, and he noticed his legs giving out under him._

 _He collapsed from exhaustion the second he realized he was actually moving. He dropped his father, and blacked out._

 _Townspeople found them lying there quite some time later and carried them both to the hospital._

 _It wasn't for several days that Reiki woke up, and with his waking, there was an overwhelming feeling of regret and sorrow that accompanies the loss of one's whole world._

* * *

 **A/N:** Alright. Gonna end there. What'd you think? Lots of flashbacks, and not a lot of action, but this was mostly just a character development chapter. And you have more information now. The next chapter will focus more on the Fairy Tail guild. I'm thinking that there's only gonna be about three or four more chapters, but knowing me, I'll think of some plot twist that strays from the storyline, and I'll write a million and a half chapters on it.

Also, I need your help. I'm going to write an epilogue after the story ends, and I need baby names (boy or girl) for as many ships as you can think of. As many names as you want for any ship that you want. If I like it, I'll use it (You'll get credit for it in the author's note of the chapter it's used in, of course). You can PM me about it, or just put it directly in the comments. Thank you in advance!

-K


End file.
